Navigate the Next Wave of Innovation

Explore real-world demonstrations of Digital Twins across ocean sectors, from aquaculture and fisheries to offshore energy and maritime safety. This page showcases interactive pilots, videos, and platform links that illustrate how Digital Twins are transforming ocean management, planning, and decision-making.

See Digital Twins in Action!

Smart Aquaculture Solutions

Smart Aquaculture Solutions pilot integrates citizen science with advanced Digital Twin technologies to promote sustainable coastal management in the Caleris area. Faced with significant challenges like pollution, overfishing, and climate change, the observatory has adopted an innovative, community-focused approach. By combining nature-based solutions with real-time data from surface sensors and gliders, the pilot aims to improve water quality, protect marine biodiversity, and support the local aquaculture industry. 

Key initiatives include: 

• Advanced Monitoring: Using a network of sensors and a "Digital Twin" of the marine environment to test solutions virtually and improve decision-making.
• Community Involvement: Actively engaging local fishers, aquaculture workers, women's groups, and youth, combining scientific insights with traditional knowledge. 
• Capacity Building: Training the next generation of ocean professionals through summer schools, master's programs, and PhD support. 
• Technological Innovation: Developing user-friendly mobile applications to provide farmers with real-time data on water conditions, helping them manage their farms efficiently and sustainably. 

Short-Term Operation and Maintenance Planning

WavEC has developed an application for the optimisation of the scheduling of preventive maintenance operations for offshore wind farms.

Invasive Species Risk Assessment (ISRA)

Discover how the Invasive Species Risk Assessment (ISRA) pilot empowers shellfish farmers to fight invasive species and climate-driven threats through remote sensing, machine learning, and citizen science.

Coastal Crete: Oil Spill Identification and Forecasting

Coastal Crete's Oil Spill Identification and Forecasting Ocean Twin is an advanced, high-resolution forecasting system co-developed by FORTH and MEEO. This globally transferable twin integrates satellite Earth Observation, real-time in-situ data, and machine learning, enabling accurate simulation of oil spill scenarios in the marine environment. 

 The Oil Spill Response Ocean Twin provides a comprehensive suite of tools for early detection, forecasting, and operational response to marine oil pollution: Oil Spill Detection and Forecasting – Leveraging near-real-time Sentinel-1 SAR imagery, an automatic detection system identifies marine oil spills and triggers the forecasting workflow. A multi-model approach combining particle tracking with high-resolution WRF (atmospheric), NEMO (hydrodynamic), and WAVEWATCH III (wave) models delivers short-term, high-accuracy predictions of spill drift and fate. These forecasts are crucial for rapid response and impact mitigation on ecosystems, coastal infrastructure, and economic activity. 

 Operational and On-Demand Spill Forecasting – Users are provided with a visual operational picture for deploying technical response measures. The forecasting tool also supports “what-if” predictive simulations, enabling scenario testing using various environmental forcings and ensemble runs to assess uncertainty. The service is globally applicable and configurable for any marine region. 

 All tools are packaged as Docker containers and distributed through the INESCTEC unified application catalogue. Users can run the forecasting models with a single CWL command line, while additional pipeline tools allow seamless execution of full detection-to-forecasting chains or point-source simulations. A lightweight bathymetry-cutting utility further enhances performance for targeted applications. 

 Forecast outputs are automatically visualised on the GeoMachine platform, where the “Oil Spills” virtual machine renders interactive spill trajectory maps from the model’s NetCDF output (spill_properties.nc), enabling intuitive analysis for decision-makers.

Aquaculture Risk Metrics (AqRM)

The Aquaculture Risk Metrics Norway Pilot is an advanced data technology that gathers all relevant risk data on fish farming in Norway. The pilot provides a holistic risk assessment and uses predictive analytics to identify future risk scenarios that can be mitigated through adaptation measures and/or enable the purchase of tailored insurance. It aims to create a web platform that can be made available to all stakeholders in fish farming through a licensing agreement.

Coastal Crete: Ship Routing / Harbour Safety

Coastal Crete: Ship routing / Harbour safety pilot is a high-resolution Digital Twin of the Cretan Sea, transferable globally. This twin integrates advanced forecasting models with real-time sensor data to enhance maritime safety and operational efficiency. 

 The Ship Routing / Harbour Safety Ocean Twin includes two core applications:

• Optimal Ship Routing – Powered by VISIR-2 (developed by CMCC), this tool computes routes that minimise distance, time, and CO₂ emissions. Real-time and predictive path optimization is visualized on the GeoMachine platform, allowing users to dynamically adjust to evolving marine conditions.
• High-Resolution Wave Forecasting – Using the SWAN model, downscaled at 50m ultra high resolution, this application delivers 3-day wave forecasts essential for safe harbor operations. Visualised via the ADAM platform, it supports port authorities and maritime stakeholders in operational decision-making.

These tools are triggered by real-time Hydromast sensor data from the Port of Heraklion during severe weather conditions and are packaged within Docker containers available through the ILIAD GitHub repositories. CWL workflows and application packages are also accessible via the INESCTEC unified catalogue.

Tidal Array: Multiscale Coastal Model and Real-Time Operational Tool for Marine Renewable Energy

The Tidal Array Digital Twin pilot can be used for various purposes: marine energy resource assessment, array design optimisation, array hydro-environmental impact assessment, and operation monitoring. Originally developed for simulating tidal turbine array, in Inner Stroma, Scotland, UK, the system provides essential environmental, technical, and modelling capabilities that are extensible and transferable. The computational tool has been developed in cooperation with MeyGen Ltd, and the web dashboard is made available via Hidromod's AquaSafe platform.

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Satellite-Based Oil Spill Detection and Monitoring System

This application enables the detection and monitoring of oil spills at sea using satellite-based remote sensing and advanced machine learning techniques. By analyzing multisource satellite imagery, it identifies anomalies that indicate potential oil pollution, supporting rapid environmental response and maritime safety.

ILVO North Sea Fisheries

VISTools is the North Sea Fisheries Pilot of the Iliad project, created to support the Belgian fishing fleet with advanced decision-making tools. Using real-time data and predictive models, VISTools can boosts efficiency and sustainability at sea. 

Key features include: Analytics Tool:

• Real-time dashboard with insights on catch composition, fuel use, and vessel activity via onboard sensors 
• Fishing Opportunity Explorer: ML-powered forecasts for the best fishing spots up to 7 days in advance, tailored for common sole and European plaice.

Flow Monitoring Solutions for Sediment Motion Modelling and Beyond

TalTech has developed flow monitoring device, the Hydromast, for sediment motion studies, that has been applied additionally in other pilots within ILIAD. 

Biodiversity and Seascape

Procedural Ocean

As part of broader maritime spatial planning efforts, governments often develop detailed plans for specific sea areas, such as designating zones for offshore wind farms in the North Sea. These wind farms are typically located far from shore, sometimes hundreds of kilometers out at sea. 

In many cases, government officials and planners never have the opportunity to see these installations in person. Instead, they must rely on reports, academic articles, and input from external experts to gradually piece together an understanding of the technical details and wider implications of developing and operating such facilities, often with limited time before critical decisions must be made. 

Procedural Ocean addresses this challenge by automatically generating immersive 3D environments in Unreal or Unity game engines, based on user-defined input parameters, particularly those related to offshore wind farms. With minimal manual work, the platform creates realistic visualizations that depict how proposed wind farms might look and function in real-world conditions. This tool is designed to support planners and stakeholders by enhancing understanding, facilitating informed policy discussions, and improving decision-making processes for specific offshore developments.

Varna Port - Harbor Safety

This tool helps keep Varna Port open and operational more days each year, even in challenging weather like fog, strong winds, or heavy rain, by supporting safer navigation with the help of augmented and virtual reality technologies                                        

Fisheries DTO

The Fisheries Digital Twin is a web-based tool built with R and Shiny to assess marine ecosystem health and sustainability using fisheries and community indicators

Watch the Session on the Involvement of fisheries firms in the digital community, the use of satellite data - Day 1

Watch the Session on the Involvement of fisheries firms in the digital community, the use of satellite data - Day 2

AquaSafe

Hidromod's AquaSafe platform is a dashboard solution for presenting crystal-clear data in water-related sectors, utilizing a wide variety of widgets to display measured and modeled data, facilitating safe and efficient operations. 

Delivering reliable, high-resolution metocean forecasts validated by real-time observations, robust digital twins anchored in network numerical models and continuous analysis of thousands of observation data points, Aquasafe provides flexible data analytics and reporting capabilities for the following sectors: 

•  Maritime
• Ports and harbours
• Urban hydraulics
• Aquaculture
• Agriculture
• Beach water quality

Hydromast Array Retrieval

Retrieval of equipment from the Bay of Riga with TalTech and Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology.

Hydromast Array Installation

Installation of Hydromasts, wave and current meters developed at TalTech on the coast of Latvia in Skulte with Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology.

Jellyfish Forecast

Harnessing the power of citizen science to better understand and predict jellyfish blooms, contributing to safer and more informed marine activities. Model by University of Haifa, Hidromod and the Iliad project.