Leveraging Digital Twins of the Ocean for Integrated and Participatory Approaches for Sustainable Ocean Management

Sustainable ocean management requires integrated approaches that balance the use and conservation of marine resources while addressing the challenges of climate change and growing human pressures. It involves integrating diverse perspectives from science, policy, industry, local communities, and the public. While the recent emergence of Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTO) offers a transformative opportunity to improve science-driven decision-making and promote sustainable ocean management, realizing their full potential requires the development of tools that enable the co-production of actionable knowledge, empower stakeholders to envision future scenarios, and support the creation of strategies for effective ocean governance. 

The aim of this work is to present the conceptual model, development, and application of the Tools4MSP Geoplatform, which addresses this need by increasingly aligning with emerging DTO initiatives. This framework integrates tools that support ecosystem-based practices for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) and other area-based management and planning approaches, such as risk-based Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA), anthropogenic pressure assessment and multi-use analysis. The Tools4MSP digital platform was developed from a user-centered perspective, and it allows stakeholders to explore human uses at sea and their current impacts, as well as exploring “what-if” future scenarios, combining climate and anthropogenic variables with spatial planning strategies. The approach is directly applicable to a variety of geographical contexts and scales, such as the Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, North Atlantic, and the platform is linked to real-world observing systems and open-data European and international infrastructure. 

Such a transdisciplinary multi-actor approach empowers stakeholders to make informed decisions, directly supporting the cultural shift towards science-informed ocean governance. In addition, the shared Geoplatform brings users together in a digital community able to collaborate in identifying objectives, producing knowledge and finding innovative solutions. Finally, the ability to consider and compare future scenarios ensures that effects of climate change can be made a primary factor in the analysis, as required by the urgency of the global situation.