On June 2024 at the Digital Ocean Forum (DOF), European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova and other high-level representatives from Belgium, France and the European Commission unveiled the first pre-operational platform of the European Digital Twin Ocean (EU DTO).
The European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO), announced by President von der Leyen at the One Ocean Summit in Brest in February 2022, is a key deliverable of the EU Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters. Its purpose is to provide ocean communities with actionable knowledge and to support them in their daily decisions and planning, to ensure a healthy and sustainable ocean.
The EU DTO core infrastructure is one of the main elements of the Digital Ocean Knowledge System under the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters” and exemplifies Europe's commitment to develop innovative scientific tools to revolutionise the approach to the many challenges that our ocean faces today. By enabling a sophisticated "what-if" scenario analysis, the EU DTO offers unprecedented capabilities for modelling and developing tailor-made science-driven decision-making tools as well as visual interfaces for actors of virtually all marine and maritime sectors.
A wide variety of use cases were also displayed, including use cases on marine litter (i.e., plastic pollution), marine biodiversity, nature-based solutions (i.e., seagrass restoration), marine renewable energy (i.e., the potential of multi-use offshore wind energy), adaptation and mitigation, early warning for extreme events, and coastal monitoring (i.e. extreme sea levels and hazards).
The DOF 2024 was the occasion to showcase publicly and for the first time the prototype of the EU DTO core infrastructure. The event also served to discuss the EU DTO contribution to the sustainable development of blue economies and the management of ocean resources. In addition, this initiative helps implement the European Green Deal and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.