Roadmap towards the integration of inland waters into the Digital Twin Ocean

The objective of the CSA is to prepare the development of the inland waters part (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, snow and ice etc.) of the Mission Knowledge system, and address activities to be developed to make it integrated or interoperable with the Digital Twin Ocean for a unified Digital twin of Ocean and waters (addressing the hydrosphere as a whole) for the Mission and the lighthouses.

This should address the various facets of freshwater systems from static knowledge to dynamic monitoring of runoffs, hydrology, hydrodynamics, biogeochemistry to biology, interactions with soils and seas, for climate purposes, water management or natural disasters (e.g. flood, drought) etc.

Different scales shall be addressed from catchment to global perspective of the water cycle.

The targeted inland water digital twin shall support the implementation of the Mission through its different lighthouses and specially supporting the one dedicated to Danube.

The project should address the following:

Inventory

1. Make the inventory of EU and international policies relevant to inland waters that call for monitoring, forecast, projection or simulation of the inland water cycle in all its components: physical state, chemistry, geology, biology, both static and dynamic
2. Liaise with relevant stakeholders: researchers, industry (specially water industry operators), users (lie river basin agencies, water agencies) etc. to inventory their requirements for better policy implementation and planning in a context of climate change, considering specially the relevant lighthouses
3. Make the inventory of data sources and sensing capacities (environmental but as well socio-economic or citizen) available or required to support the twinning
4. Make the inventory of past or ongoing research projects, information systems and technical or operational programs (e.g. Copernicus, Wise) dealing with inland water monitoring and management and able to provide the basis for future digital services in terms of content, product, software (models, data analytics), tools or infrastructures (digital or sensors)
5. Liaise with the national meteorological services and with the digital twins in place in DestinationEarth to scope precisely the contribution of a twin on inland waters, avoiding duplication and preparing interfaces with these external systems to be able to propose an integrative approach to inland water monitoring and management

Critical analysis and preliminary design

Based on the outcomes of the above tasks:

1. Define a set of reference uses cases for a future digital twin development and set of requirements
2. Conduct a critical analysis of current technical achievements to propose a state-of-the-art content for an inland water digital twin (products, digital services, data analytics and digital tools including models), liaising with lighthouses, stakeholders to eventually define priorities of implementation
3. Define recommendations for a functional and system digital architecture (which data space, digital tools, digital backbone for computing and data management, APIs with external infrastructures, which reference R&D and infrastructures to consider integrating) that:

• can be integrated or at least interoperable with the Digital Twin Ocean (linked action with HORIZON-MISS-2021-OCEAN-IBA-01 EU Public Infrastructure for the European Digital Twin Ocean)
• is compatible and interoperable with the DestinationEarth initiative, especially with the two first twins that can include a hydrological component for climate and for extreme events) and with the digital platform
• enable the development of a mature, high-quality, scientifically state-of-art and pre-operation digital twin component for inland waters

Roadmap

1. Based on the recommendations defined above and the inventory made, develop a roadmap for the implementation of the Digital Twin for Inland waters including:

• A preliminary breakdown of the work, with priorities of implementation, into a stepped approach, in view of the complexity of the content, which will include physical, chemical and biological data
• A list of reference technical developments, data sources and existing programs/projects on which to build
• A list of reference use cases on which to build first with identified stakeholders, contributing preferably to the Danube lighthouse
• A tentative schedule, cost estimate and risk analysis
• Interfaces to be considered and set up to ensure the effective interoperability with external and ongoing developments like DTO, DestinE, ERICs
• A tentative technical governance to liaise with EU programs and with National meteorological services to foster an inclusive and integrative approach to the management of inland waters in a context of climate change and sustainable development

Projects should collaborate with projects funded under the topic HORIZON-INFRA-2022-EOSC-01-03 to adopt best practices regarding FAIR and open data sharing and with EU relevant programmes (Copernicus land and climate change monitoring services, EMODnet, WISE).