The European Digital Twin Ocean
Building Europe’s digital replica of the Ocean with the whole Marine Community to turn data into knowledge and informed decisions.
The European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO) is creating an interactive, science-based digital replica of the Ocean to help everyone in Europe, from policymakers and researchers to businesses and citizens, better understand, protect and sustainably manage marine environments. As part of the EU Mission “Restore Our Ocean and Waters”, the EU DTO supports the European Green Deal and EU Digital Strategy, making Ocean knowledge open, actionable and impactful. It was announced at UNOC 2025 as a major outcome of the new EU Ocean Pact.
How is Europe building a Digital Twin of the Ocean?
Launched by the European Commission at the One Ocean Summit in February 2022, the EU DTO is a flagship initiative of the Digital Ocean Knowledge System. It builds on Europe’s world-leading marine and digital infrastructures, including Copernicus, EMODnet, EuroGOOS, marine research infrastructures, and EuroHPC.
Between 2022 and 2025, two Horizon Europe projects — EDITO-Infra and EDITO-Model Lab — developed the DTO’s initial framework, integrating Copernicus Marine Service and EMODnet data into a single digital environment. The new EDITO phase (2025–2028) now scales up this platform to deliver an operational, user-driven European Digital Twin Ocean.
The EU DTO is fully compatible with the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative, ensuring synergy between Europe’s digital twins for the planet and advancing the EU’s Green Deal and Digital Strategy objectives.
URSULA VON DER LEYEN
EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT, European Digital Ocean Pavilion, Nice, France
At the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) 2025 in Nice, the European Commission announced the European Digital Twin Ocean as a key pillar of the new EU Ocean Pact. On June 9 2025, President Ursula Von Der Leyen visited the European Digital Ocean Pavilion.
An amazing tool that helps us understand the Ocean
The second announcement from Europe today is the incredible Digital Twin of the Ocean. I announced it three years ago in Brest. Today in Nice at UNOC3, we proudly present the first demonstration version. It is an amazing tool that helps us better understand the Ocean, from pollution to navigation, from risks for our coasts to biodiversity, you name it. And we will not stop here.
Mercator Ocean’s leadership in developing the European Digital Twin Ocean
Mission
MOi has been at the forefront of developing digital Ocean models over the last two decades, leading the field of operational oceanography. Delivering a constantly evolving digital description of the marine environment worldwide, Mercator Ocean is strongly committed to developing and sharing Ocean knowledge, integrating digital solutions into sustainable services and engaging with society. In this digital era, Mercator Ocean will lend its full expertise and extensive experience to the European Commission and play a leading role in the development of the European Digital Twin Ocean. Federating partners and initiatives on the EU and international level, Mercator Ocean will ensure an inclusive and collaborative approach in building the digital framework, core model suite and virtual environment for the EU DTO.
Vision
Mercator Ocean is fully committed to delivering an operational digital description of marine environments worldwide and works hard to make Ocean knowledge available and accessible to all (#Wearealloceancitizens). The European DTO will build on this vision and provide every citizen of our blue planet effective means and agency to better understand the Ocean and make informed decisions, collectively sharing the responsibility protect marine and coastal habitats. A game changer for knowledge-based decision-making, the EU DTO will provide a dynamic interactive platform and tool, generating information tailored to specific needs, crucial in helping scientists, policy makers, national authorities, private industries and the public at large, understand the role humans and nature play in shaping the Ocean’s, and ultimately our planet’s future.
The Digital Ocean Forum 2025
The Digital Ocean Forum (DOF) brings together experts, stakeholders, policymakers, and citizens to co-design and co-create the European Digital Twin Ocean. Initiated by Mercator Ocean, the first Forum took place in Paris in 2022, under the auspices of the European Commission and during the French Presidency of the EU Council.
After 3 successful editions, the Digital Ocean Forum 2025 will showcase the latest advances of the EU DTO and shape its future evolution through co-design with experts, projects and users. Building on the success of the European Digital Ocean Pavilion at UNOC3, this 2025 edition will bring together Horizon Europe project leaders, institutions and innovators of the marine community working to deliver a fully deployed European Digital Twin Ocean. Organized by the European Commission (DG RTD, DG MARE, DG DEFIS, DG INTPA) with Mercator Ocean International, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and SeaScape Belgium as implementation partners under the EDITO framework.
Building on two pioneering Horizon projects
The new phase of the EDITO project (2025–2028) builds on the achievements of two completed EU projects, EDITO-Infra and EDITO-Model Lab (2022–2025), which integrated Copernicus Marine Service and EMODnet data into a unified digital framework for the European Digital Twin Ocean (EU DTO).
EDITO-Infra established the public infrastructure backbone of the EU DTO by upgrading, combining, and integrating key components of European ocean observing, monitoring, and data programs into a single digital framework.
Led by Mercator Ocean and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), EDITO-Infra provided the foundation for deploying multiple DTO applications, supporting next-generation ocean models (EDITO-Model Lab), and enabling Horizon Europe “Mission Lighthouse” projects.
EDITO-Model Lab was a three-year project developing the next generation of ocean models, complementary to the Copernicus Marine Service and fully integrated into the EU DTO public infrastructure via EDITO-Infra.
Led by Mercator Ocean, the 13-partner consortium demonstrated the feasibility of connecting and interoperating a wide range of ocean model components on a common platform, supporting global-to-coastal model configurations, co-development of new simulations, and enhanced on-demand ocean forecasting and climate prediction capacities.
How will the European Digital Twin Ocean improve Ocean knowledge and sustainable action?
- Improve understanding of marine environments and biodiversity, from the coast to open Ocean, from Ocean physics to ice to biogeochemistry, from the surface to the seabed, allowing a digital exploration in time and space of the Ocean adapted to different user needs
- Predict the Ocean and marine ecosystem’s response to human and natural pressures
- Simulate future scenarios to evaluate potential impact of human interventions
- Assess management strategies, inform decisions and design effective policies to protect and restore marine and coastal habitats, support a sustainable blue economy and combat climate change.
Contributing to international DTO efforts
The European DTO contributes directly to challenge 8 of the UN Ocean Decade for Sustainable Development, which focuses on creating a digital representation of the Ocean. Moreover, MOi hosts the OceanPrediction Decade Collaborative Centre (OceanPrediction DCC), which works with other DCCs, Decade Coordination Offices and programmes including the UN Digital Twins of the Ocean (DITTO) programme to address this ambitious challenge. On the international scene, MOi is also responsible for the EU action coordination for the G7 Future of Seas and Ocean Initiative, which includes a specific priority to enhance international collaborations on the development of Digital Twins of the Ocean including observing requirements and data sharing / interoperability issues.
Within this context, in 2021, the DITTO programme with MOi and other partners initiated an international summit underscoring a global commitment to cultivate a shared understanding and exchanging best practices in the development of DTOs.
Alain Arnaud and Marina Tonani, MOi’s experts on oceanography and digital twinning are members of the DITTO steering committee, where they provide scientific and technical insights.
Challenge 8: Through multi-stakeholder collaboration, develop a comprehensive digital representation of the Ocean, including a dynamic Ocean map, which provides free and open access for exploring, discovering, and visualizing past, current, and future Ocean conditions in a manner relevant to diverse stakeholders.
