Advancing Marine Ecosystem Management: Implementing digital twins approaches for the integrated ecosystem assessment of the Atlantic Ocean

The future implementation of Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTOs) offers a transformative framework for mapping, monitoring, understanding, and managing marine ecosystems across diverse coastal and open-ocean regions. Within the EU-funded MISSION ATLANTIC project, long-term observations are combined with autonomous data collection, advanced processing techniques, numerical modelling, and interactive visualization to capture key physical, chemical, and biological ocean variables and their interconnections in support of the integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) for the Atlantic Ocean. A network of autonomous observing platforms including underwater gliders, surface vehicles, and sensor arrays, has delivered near real-time data streams across several Atlantic regions. These heterogeneous datasets are processed and fused using machine-learning as well as process-based models and methods, enabling the detection of critical ecosystem indicators and drivers of change. This initial DTO framework provides interactive simulation environments, allowing stakeholders to explore alternative management strategies and climate scenarios, assess cumulative pressures, and evaluate the resilience, risks, and vulnerabilities of marine ecosystems. Findings from MISSION ATLANTIC demonstrate significant advances in the operational application of DTOs, offering decision-makers actionable, science-based tools to guide sustainable development and conservation efforts for the Atlantic Ocean.