Digital twin for coastal cities: an evaluation from a stakeholder perspective

Improving community resilience requires innovative approaches to developing adaptation strategies. The European Union has supported this process through several initiatives focusing on nature-based solutions (NBSs), digital technologies, and promoting co-creation. The Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities (SCORE) project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program, focused on improving the resilience of coastal cities by promoting new digital tools such as digital twins, citizen science sensing, NBS, and co-creation activities engaging citizens and stakeholders in the design, development, and evaluation of NBS-based resilience solutions. SCORE developed a digital twin for three cutting-edge cities: Massa in Italy, and Vilanova i la Geltrù and Oarsoaldea in Spain, the first two on the Mediterranean coast, and the second in the Basque region on the Atlantic Ocean. The digital twin aims to support both the co-design of NBSs to effectively reduce flood risk and the management of flood-related emergencies by providing a clear representation of scenarios obtained from real-time sensors and short-term forecasts. This article reports and evaluates the co-creation process carried out in these cutting-edge cities following the living lab approach, with particular attention to the usability, utility, and expected impact of these new technologies within an effective climate change resilience strategy.