Thematic and local twins of the ocean

The ocean offers a plethora of vital services and intrinsic values, covering many different sectors. Decision-making to optimize and safeguard these values requires data and information that reflects the complexity. Digital twins of the ocean represent powerful tools for both decision-makers and scientists. The Iliad project builds on the assets resulting from two decades of investments in policies and infrastructures for the blue economy and aims at establishing interoperable, data-intensive, and cost-effective digital twins of the ocean. It capitalizes on the explosion of new data provided by many different Earth observation resources, auxiliary data,  advanced computing infrastructures (cloud computing, HPC, Internet of Things, Big Data, social networking, and more) in an inclusive, virtual/augmented, and engaging fashion to address all Earth data challenges. To meet the needs of decision-makers and scientists Iliad has developed a set of thematic and local digital twins covering a variety of sectors on locations in Europe, Middle-East and Africa. An overview of the thematic and local twins and examples of use of various data and technologies to meet the needs of decision-makers and scientists will be presented. This will contribute to enhancing and sustaining the ecosystem of digital twins of the ocean, its data, technology and knowledge.