Integration of biodiversity monitoring data into the Digital Twin Ocean

Project Information

DTO-BioFlow

Grant agreement ID: 101112823

DOI

10.3030/101112823

EC signature date 21 May 2023

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 28 February 2027

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 9 747 516,25

EU contribution

€ 9 452 372,50

Coordinated by

VLAAMS INSTITUUT VOOR DE ZEE
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DTO-BioFlow (Integration of biodiversity monitoring data into the Digital Twin Ocean)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ocean and its biodiversity are essential to life on this planet. Comprehensive data on biodiversity, and related human and environmental pressures are crucial to understand its current state and how this may change. Protecting and restoring biodiversity is one of three objectives of the Horizon Europe Mission to restore our oceans and waters by 2030, enabling the EU to reach its Green Deal and Biodiversity 2030 targets. Identified as one of the Mission "enablers", the EU will build on “a digital knowledge system” to include a Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) allowing simulation of ‘what if’ scenarios, advancing ocean knowledge, informing evidence-based policy and offering a range of societal applications.
To effectively replicate the ocean’s ecology, the DTO requires sustained flows of data on biodiversity and associated pressures. Despite myriad actors collecting biodiversity data, and the development of novel cost-effective monitoring technologies, much of these data are inaccessible or unusable for a variety of reasons, hampering the development of the DTO biological component and limiting its efficacy. Between September 2023 and February 2027, DTO-BioFlow Horizon Europe project will activate access to (“sleeping”) marine biodiversity data and enable the sustainable integration of existing and new Artificial Intelligence processed and automated data flows from various sources to EMODnet and into the EDITO infrastructure serving the EU DTO. Combining sustained data flows, models and new algorithms, DTO-BioFlow will develop and integrate the biological component of the DTO, including new digital tools and services. Policy-relevant use cases will demonstrate the benefit for marine ecosystems of continuous data streams flowing through EMODnet and usable by the EU DTO infrastructures and ultimate end-users. Mobilising the marine biodiversity community towards increasing the availability of biodiversity monitoring data into 2030, DTO-BioFlow and its outputs will support the Mission’s actions to protect and restore biodiversity.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

WP2 has been moving ahead on increasing the flow of relevant biodiversity data and mapping barriers and pathways for better data access. Several deliverables have been produced from the various tasks. An overview of monitoring frameworks has been compiled and analysed (Deliverable 2.1) an inventory of unavailable data sources and priority list for integration has been created (Deliverable 2.9) a first version with scenario’s to remove barriers for data access (Deliverable 2.2) and two calls for FSTP data grants have been launched (Deliverable 2.4 and 2.5).

WP3 is advancing well on enabling sustained flows of biodiversity monitoring data into the DTO. The work package has produced the DTO-BioFlow data flow Blueprint (Deliverable 3.1) describing the general framework for setting up a sustainable data flow towards the DTO for genomic data, plankton imaging data, fish, mammal and bird biologging data, passive acoustic observation data and other relevant biodiversity data sources. Furthermore, a data products inventory (Deliverable 3.3) was created with metadata descriptions of products to be created within WP3.

WP4 has made good progress on developing demonstrator use cases (DUC’s) for biodiversity monitoring in the DTO. A set of DUC’s have been defined. Each of them have been described in the description of the use cases (Deliverable 4.1) and the required digital resources have been specified in the Digital twin resources specification document (Deliverable 4.2).

WP5 is putting the foundations towards technical integration into the DTO infrastructure. A first overview of tools was created that support the operationalized data streams and demonstrators. The landscape of relevant initiatives, systems, standards and formats was analysed to seek alignment and interoperability with DTO and related initiatives (Deliverable5.1). Furthermore, first discussion have taken place on adoption and durable governance and about the targets of supporting developments.

WP6 has been pushing forward on dissemination, communication and exploitation of the project in accordance with the Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation (DC&E) strategy and plan (Deliverable 6.1 and 6.2). A campaign based approach was followed and dissemination was organized through many channels including website and social media. For the biodiversity data providers a training was organized and a pamphlet (Deliverable 6.3) was created presenting the data flows and attracting additional data providers.

WP1 took care of project management and coordination. Internal project communication flow was put in place (Deliverable 1.1) a risk management plan was created and updated (Deliverable 1.2 and 1.3) an extensive ethics strategy was put in place (Deliverable 1.5 and 1.6) and a data management plan was created and updated (Deliverable 1.8 and 1.9).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

DTO BioFlow aims to:
-Increase the flow of relevant biodiversity data, by assessing opportunities and unlocking current barriers to assimilation and ingestion:
Through several inventorisation exercises and through data grant calls the project has already identified many potential data resources and has initiated important steps towards mobilizing part of that data for the DTO.

-Develop and integrate the biodiversity digital component of the EU Digital Twin Ocean ensuring sustainable data flows after project end:
In close collaboration with biodiversity observation networks the project has already put in place important strategies, tools and connections for a sustained data flow beyond the project.

-Demonstrate an end-to-end approach for biodiversity monitoring based on the digital environment provided by EU DTO & data sources:
A set of interesting policy relevant Demonstrator Use Cases (DUC’s) has been defined to demonstrate the value and applicability of the unlocked data flows into the DTO.

-Establish mechanisms to monitor, measure progress & drive community action towards increasing biodiversity data flows into EU DTO by 2030
Through the communication and dissemination campaigns the project is making connection with various stakeholders (both data providers and data uses) and relevant projects that can further increase the data flows towards the DTO in the years to come.

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