Rural areas across Europe are undergoing profound social, economic, environmental and digital transitions. Yet, these changes are often hidden behind averages and national statistics, making it hard for policymakers, researchers and local actors to truly see what is happening on the ground. That is precisely the gap the RUSTIK Data Viewer and the new RUSTIK Viewer Handbook aim to fill.
What is the RUSTIK Data Viewer?
The RUSTIK Data Viewer is an online, interactive mapping platform that brings together a wide range of territorial indicators on rural Europe. It allows users to visualise and analyse:
- Socioeconomic dynamics such as population change, depopulation, social inclusion, access to services, employment and education.
- Environmental transition including climate risks (wildfires, droughts, heavy precipitation), land cover and land use, natural resources, protected areas and air quality.
- Digital transition through indicators on connectivity and digital infrastructure.
- Local experimentation with data from 14 RUSTIK Living Labs, where rural communities co-create knowledge and test new approaches.
The Viewer combines harmonised European datasets (e.g. from EU statistical and environmental agencies) with more granular local information, enabling comparisons between regions as well as deep dives into specific territories.
What does the Viewer Handbook offer?
The newly released RUSTIK Viewer Handbook is a practical companion designed to help users get the most out of the platform. It serves several purposes:
- Onboarding new users: It explains the overall structure of the RUSTIK Data Viewer, its main components, and the types of indicators available.
- Guided exploration: It walks through the different thematic areas (socioeconomic, environmental, digital and Living Labs) and shows how to navigate maps, layers and territorial units.
- Interpretation support: It describes what each group of indicators tells us about rural transitions—for example, how to read demographic trends, what “service deserts” look like on a map, or how climate projections can inform local adaptation strategies.
- Technical transparency: It details how the system is built (spatial database, map server, web viewer, security) and which reference datasets are integrated, helping users understand the robustness and limitations of the data they use.
Whether you are a local authority wanting to diagnose challenges in your territory, a researcher comparing regions, or an innovation actor working in a Living Lab, the handbook is designed as a bridge between complex data infrastructure and practical, real-world questions.
Why this matters for rural policy and practice
Rural territories face intertwined challenges: aging populations and outmigration, unequal access to services, exposure to climate risks, pressure on ecosystems, and gaps in digital connectivity. At the same time, they hold crucial assets for Europe’s future: food production, biodiversity, renewable energy and cultural heritage.
The RUSTIK Data Viewer helps make these realities visible by:
- Revealing spatial inequalities that national averages can hide.
- Allowing users to combine different dimensions (e.g. demographics, services and mobility) in the same analysis.
- Supporting evidence-based decision-making, from strategic planning and funding applications to monitoring the impact of policies over time.
The Viewer Handbook turns this potential into something accessible: a clear, structured guide that shows where to start, which indicators to use for which questions, and how to interpret what appears on the map.
Who is the handbook for?
The guide is especially useful for:
- Local and regional administrations working on rural development, cohesion policy, climate adaptation, or service planning.
- Researchers and analysts interested in territorial data, sustainability transitions and rural inequalities.
- Living Lab partners and practitioners who need to connect local insights with broader European trends.
- Civil society organisations looking for robust, visual evidence to inform advocacy and community projects.
If you work with rural territories and need to ground your decisions in data, the combination of the RUSTIK Data Viewer and the Viewer Handbook is designed for you.
