OPTICAL focuses on improving how flood protection measures are planned and placed. The project develops and tests a decision-making framework to help determine where retention basins and temporary flood barriers can be most effective in reducing flood impacts. It takes into account not only flood reduction, but also competing land-use needs and both short- and long-term economic costs.

By combining flood modeling with spatial and economic analysis, OPTICAL helps decision-makers understand trade-offs between cost, feasibility, and flood protection benefits. The approach is designed to be scalable, practical to apply, and robust to uncertainty, and will be tested in real flood-prone regions such as Limburg, in close collaboration with local stakeholders.