​Environmental Digital Twins: A framework for collaborative digital landscape science 

The Environmental Digital Twins project, funded under the Digital Water and Landscapes Initiative, has sought to identify and understand the opportunities for digital twin technologies and approaches that can be applied to CSIRO Environment Business Unit research. 

The evolution and uptake of digital twins (DTs) and digital twinning concepts is moving rapidly and being applied in more and varied domains. As such there is no agreed definition for a DT or what they are, but there is some guidance around what they are not. 

For the purposes of this work we offer two statements that we have found useful and on which we build in the project report. 

‘A digital twin is a virtual representation synchronized with physical things, people or processes’ (NVIDIA blog, 14 Dec 2021, https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/12/14/what-is-a-digital-twin/) 

‘A digital twin without a physical twin is a model’ (Wright and Davidson 2020) 

In addition to attempting to answer the questions posed above, this activity has given the authors the incentive to learn about new paradigms (e.g., digital twins), and to get excited about the opportunity to contribute to the body of work and effort being put into how we can better deliver our science through adapting/reinvesting technologies and methods.  

Our goal in the report is to provide sufficient information to make strategic investment decisions in how we move forward, by taking advantage of what digital twins and digital twinning concepts and technologies can provide. We also provide practical recommendations that project teams can employ that will start them down the path to including digital twin concept in their work. 

for more information contact Susan.Cuddy@csiro.au or Matt.Paget@csiro.au