About
Building with Nature interest
The Ecomindmap tool can help to get an overview of the ecosystem at hand in a BwN-project, even when time is limited. In this way, the project objective can be expanded from purely technical to nature-inclusive, which may create added value for nature and society. The development of an Ecomindmap starts with the ecosystem, it is literally the “project environment”. Yet, this does not mean that only the ecosystem is considered, socio-economic aspects are considered as well in the form of ecosystem services and a brief stakeholder mapping. An intervention in the ecosystem can have multiple socio-economical as well as ecological effects. The aim of the tool is to make these effects visible by showing the links between the ecosystem and the socio-economical system, such as the ecosystem services. The tool is applicable to all phases of a BwN project. In the initiation phase the level of abstraction will be high and the ecosystem will be described in rather general terms (depending on whether the specific location is already known). In the next phases, one will zoom in to a more detailed level. Then the Ecomindmap becomes a site-specific description of the ecosystem.