Europe’s Digital Twin Ocean: The newest innovation wave in marine rehabilitation
Utilising open data and advanced simulation to restore and protect Europe’s marine ecosystems
One of the most important initiatives in wildlife restoration has become the restoration of health in our oceans and waters globally. The European Commission has now launched the European Digital Twin Ocean, as part of the EU Mission called ‘Restore our oceans and waters by 2030’. A digital twin is a replica of a physical object, system, or process in a digital form of its environment. This helps organisations create simulations of real situations and their outcomes to conduct precise and targeted decision-making.
The main goal of the digital twin is to make knowledge about the ocean readily available for citizens, organisations, scientists, and policymakers through interactive visualisation tools. With this knowledge, solutions can be designed to help restore marine and coastal habitats, focus on developing a sustainable blue economy, and adapt to the changing climate. The European Digital Twin Ocean will become a public good which connects the physical, biological, and socio-economic dimensions of the ocean which utilises big data and scientific models to establish a virtual collaborative environment.
By connecting data and scientific models using tailor-made applications, users can test specific scenarios to better understand the ocean, predict its response to change, and make informed decisions. On the data.europa.eu portal, a lot of datasets can be found to further our knowledge of the ocean. Making this knowledge widely accessible helps drive the formation of the digital twin and make users aware of the current conditions of our oceans to be fully equipped for analysing the twin.
As the European Commission continues to drive digital innovation and environmental stewardship as part of their 2024-2029 priorities, the Digital Twin Ocean stands as a powerful example of how data and digital collaboration can work on protecting one of the planet’s most important habitats. Read more and get updates from the digital twin here, and discover the data that fuels this initiative here.
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