- 1Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Geoscience and Engineering, Netherlands (f.c.vossepoel@tudelft.nl)
- 2Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, Barcelona, Spain
- 3Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- 4Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Swindon, United Kingdom
- 5Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, the Netherlands
- 6Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO), Mol, Belgium
Since the atmosphere is omnipresent, it plays a vital role in the complex interactions with other Earth and societal systems. This is especially true in urban areas, where over 4 billion people currently reside, a number expected to grow to 70% of the global population by 2050[1]. Human interventions in the urban environment – including spatial planning, the development of green, blue and grey infrastructure, and mobility choices – interact with climate and meteorological variables to influence the health and well-being of urban dwellers and the liveability of our cities. Such complexity makes it challenging for existing infrastructures to provide robust evidence to support stakeholders who make these decisions. Thus, a digital twin tailored to stakeholder needs that brings together internationally disparate expertise and high-quality research infrastructures would be highly beneficial.
UrbanAIR[2], started in January 2025, strives to develop such a digital twin that supports urban decision-makers as they contend with design dilemmas stemming from the impacts of climate change and air quality on citizen health and socio-economic wellbeing. It is a highly interdisciplinary consortium, bringing together computer scientists, environmental modellers, communication specialists, social scientists and software developers. On the technical side, UrbanAIR will include a cascade of atmospheric models, ranging from the global scale, linking via the mesoscale to very high-resolution simulators at the neighbourhood or street level. By starting from the perspective of the decision-maker and fostering co-creation, we will configure the models to generate scenarios that address key dilemmas and support a balanced evaluation of decision criteria. In this presentation, we will present our plans for integrating the different simulation and decision-making components. We will pay specific attention to the integration of observations into the simulator and to uncertainty quantification through emerging data assimilation and machine-learning techniques.
The resulting dynamic, user-friendly workflow and tools will be integrated into the Destination Earth infrastructure[3], empowering municipalities and industries to make informed choices on urban planning and design to better prepare for climate change adaptation and hazard exposure. By testing the tools in a variety of real-world settings, the research infrastructure of UrbanAIR will pave the way for effective climate adaptation and hazard mitigation in a more general sense, transforming urban planning and design into a proactive, tool-based, approach for a safer, healthier, and more resilient future.
[1] World Bank, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview, accessed 13 January 2025
[2] UrbanAIR is part of the work programme HORIZON-INFRA-2024-TECH-01-03: New digital twins for Destination Earth.
[3] https://destination-earth.eu/
How to cite: Vossepoel, F. C., Pickard, S., van Reeuwijk, M., Samler, M., Theeuwes, N., and Veldeman, N.: Towards a digital twin of the urban atmosphere for decision support, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7284, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7284, 2025.
