State of the art

The PoliRural Rural Attractiveness Explorer (RAE) is based on data-driven solutions for assessing the attractiveness of areas developed within the PoliRural project. It is mainly a web application assessing the attractiveness of NUTS3 units in Europe (figure RAE1), the attractiveness of municipalities in the Czech Republic (RAE2) and also sub-studies assessing attractiveness at the micro level (municipalities or small regions).

The attractiveness evaluation uses an attractiveness index, a relative value obtained as a weighted average of standardised input data (see RAE3). The input data represent a layer describing the characteristics of the assessed area. From a technological point of view, the interactive web application is based on R and HSLayers software.

PoliRuralPlus objectives for extension

The extension of the above solution consists of several steps:

• Combination of statistical and VGI (Volunteered geographic information) data
• Optimisation of the choice of input weights and definition of weights for individual input datasets and their groups
• Integration of elements of modern geoinformatics, statistics, ML and AI
• Presenting results at the detailed grid level
• Interpreting results using local experts and stakeholders.

The initiation of the model for assessing the territory's attractiveness in terms of innovation potential along the Czech-Bavarian border is underway. This territory represents a very large rural and mountainous area in Central Europe. Moreover, its individual parts are considered marginal regions in both the Czech Republic and Germany.

The current results are presented using a cross-border heat map (Figure RAE4), in which green areas indicate places with strong innovation potential and red regions indicate weak innovation potential.

Figure RAE2. Output of the interactive web application for data-driven assessment of the attractiveness of municipalities in the Czech Republic.

Figure RAE3: Schematic of the data-driven process of assessing the attractiveness of a territory.

Figure RAE4. Assessment of innovation potential in the Czech-Bavarian border region.