Europe’s Digital Twin Ocean: The newest innovation wave in marine
rehabilitation
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,
[https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/restore-our-ocean-and-waters/european-digital-twin-ocean-european-dto_en]
as part of the EU Mission called ‘Restore our oceans and waters by
2030’. A digital twin
[https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-digital-twin-technology]
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
[https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/4902607b-e541-11ec-a534-01aa75ed71a1]
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 [https://data.europa.eu/en] portal, a
lot of datasets
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?locale=en&page=1&query=marine+biodiversity]
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
[https://commission.europa.eu/priorities-2024-2029_en], 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
[https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/restore-our-ocean-and-waters/european-digital-twin-ocean-european-dto_en#latest],
and discover the data that fuels this initiative here
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?query=ocean&locale=en].

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Publication Date/Time
2025-08-06T08:00:00+00:00
Utilising open data and advanced simulation to restore and protect
Europe’s marine ecosystems