Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ILIAD (INTEGRATED DigitaL Framework FOR Comprehensive MARITIME DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICES)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2023-01-31
ILIAD aims to establish an interoperable, data-intensive, and cost-effective Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) that fuses a large volume of diverse data in a semantically rich and data agnostic approach to enable simultaneous communication with real-world systems and models. The ILIAD DTO will contribute towards a sustainable ocean economy. It will follow the System of Systems approach, integrating all existing EU Earth Observing and Modelling Digital Infrastructures and Facilities. The ILIAD Marketplace will be created to promote digital applications related to Blue Economy. Providers will use the ILIAD Marketplace to distribute apps, plug-ins, interfaces, raw data, citizen science data, synthesized information, and value-adding services.
Regarding the Integration of data from existing and new observatories and automated sensor platforms ILIAD has:
• identified databases containing high-resolution data in fields such as bathymetry, meteorology, climate, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, fisheries, biodiversity, habitats and ecology and cultural heritage resources,
• classified the Pilots into two main categories: (a) the environmental/ecological DTs and (b) the industrial/engineering DTs
• for each Pilot DT of the above categories, identified the appropriate datasets and parameters needed from external repositories and the appropriate sensors and data collection system to fulfill DT’s operational requirements
• developed the Pilots’ Conceptual Framework to explain the methods of integration of ocean data from existing data platforms and networks; to select, build, test and deploy a series of novel operational cost-effective automated monitoring systems; to describe the blending process of existing and new monitoring systems; numerical and AI models to achieve downscaling and localization at each pilot DT; integrate Citizen Science component as an essential data pool for marine environmental management; and develop novel solutions for selected marine and maritime sectors,
• started building novel sensors and deploying them at the pilot DT to collect data in RT and/or near real-time NRT mode
• started developing seven different Sensor systems.
In terms of increasing citizen engagement ILIAD focused on collecting needs regarding different pilots. An algorithm to collect data from Twitter was developed by DUTH and tested on Climate Change and Global Warming tweets.The algorithm will eventually be applied in Extreme Events Detection for DT focusing on the Oil Spill and the Mucilage monitoring and modeling. Furthermore, a) a catalogue of active citizen science projects was compiled, b) a citizen science framework was released, c) following this release, we started planning tutorial sessions, hackathons and workshops and d) carried out 15 engagement activities.
Progress has been made also in the development of the Ocean Information Model (OIM), an ontology that serves as a framework for organizing and representing oceanographic data. To aid in the preparation and integration of data, a set of tools has been provided that allow for efficient data processing.
In regard to the development of a DTO through co-creation including data fusion from ocean models and sensors, during the current reporting period the ILIAD DTO was being co-designed by 22 different teams evolving 22 pilots crossing 13 different ocean fields. Multiple pilots cross the same ontology. ILIAD teams have currently designed 15 ontologies, 20 models and 15 thematic models.
Also, progress was made towards providing a serviced modelling and simulation environment by the definition and implementation of a reference interoperability architecture to describe, find, deploy, undeploy and run processing requests along with the necessary parameters and making the results available to users in an efficient manner. This architecture follows open standards and known best practices that are being tested with selected pilots. The description of the processing applications allows for interoperable deployment through the API or on cloud or HPC infrastructures.
Two workshops have been organized as a side event of the second UN Ocean Conference (June 2022) where ILIAD joined UN DITTO and EDITO. Another workshop was organized in the 2nd ILIAD General Assembly (January 2023) where pilot leaders had the opportunity to discuss the reference interoperability architecture and API for the service processing layer, get to know the standards behind it, see a hands-on tutorial on containerizing and describing models and algorithms for building processing applications while providing an overview of the needs and requirements of the pilots.
For the purposes of demonstrating the DTO impact through testing of the Pilot Context Twins (PCT), with to-date and what-if scenarios:
• Pilots mock-ups were developed and discussed with potential users
• the status of pilot development is updated monthly with pilots being prioritized in close collaboration with other WPs.
Actions to ensure that the ILIAD DTO has the desired impact with respect to DestinE, the European Green Deal and related commitments through multi-stakeholder engagement included:
- User groups and stakeholders were consulted on the design of UI and UX of the Iliad DTO Interactive Environment and the Iliad Marketplace for discovering and accessing DTOs.
- An initial dedicated workshop for UI and UX requirements and a follow-up workshop on the design of the Iliad Marketplace were held during the Iliad Plenary Meetings (Athens, June 2022 & Rome, January 2023) paving the way for the products to be prototyped and facilitating future End-user and Stakeholder participation
- Multiple stakeholders engaged through implementation of the Iliad communication, dissemination and exploitation plan.
To support industry partners to create or/and expand their portfolio of DTO and develop new business models and opportunities based on ocean data related services the team in charge of Technology Transfer and Business Development has been supporting and advising partners on potential business opportunities and has already begun developing initial business models.
An overview of the problems, solutions and potential business opportunities that have thus far been explored was established which is a prior condition to achieving the relevant KPIs such as:
● Number (#) of use cases identified, currently over 20.
● # of developed and tested mock-ups
● # of end-to-end solutions using real-world data
● # of DTO with added functionalities , with all having added functionalities and novelties beyond current state-of-the-art.
● # of collaborations with industry to ensure fast adoption
• identified databases containing high-resolution data in fields such as bathymetry, meteorology, climate, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, fisheries, biodiversity, habitats and ecology and cultural heritage resources,
• classified the Pilots into two main categories: (a) the environmental/ecological DTs and (b) the industrial/engineering DTs
• for each Pilot DT of the above categories, identified the appropriate datasets and parameters needed from external repositories and the appropriate sensors and data collection system to fulfill DT’s operational requirements
• developed the Pilots’ Conceptual Framework to explain the methods of integration of ocean data from existing data platforms and networks; to select, build, test and deploy a series of novel operational cost-effective automated monitoring systems; to describe the blending process of existing and new monitoring systems; numerical and AI models to achieve downscaling and localization at each pilot DT; integrate Citizen Science component as an essential data pool for marine environmental management; and develop novel solutions for selected marine and maritime sectors,
• started building novel sensors and deploying them at the pilot DT to collect data in RT and/or near real-time NRT mode
• started developing seven different Sensor systems.
In terms of increasing citizen engagement ILIAD focused on collecting needs regarding different pilots. An algorithm to collect data from Twitter was developed by DUTH and tested on Climate Change and Global Warming tweets.The algorithm will eventually be applied in Extreme Events Detection for DT focusing on the Oil Spill and the Mucilage monitoring and modeling. Furthermore, a) a catalogue of active citizen science projects was compiled, b) a citizen science framework was released, c) following this release, we started planning tutorial sessions, hackathons and workshops and d) carried out 15 engagement activities.
Progress has been made also in the development of the Ocean Information Model (OIM), an ontology that serves as a framework for organizing and representing oceanographic data. To aid in the preparation and integration of data, a set of tools has been provided that allow for efficient data processing.
In regard to the development of a DTO through co-creation including data fusion from ocean models and sensors, during the current reporting period the ILIAD DTO was being co-designed by 22 different teams evolving 22 pilots crossing 13 different ocean fields. Multiple pilots cross the same ontology. ILIAD teams have currently designed 15 ontologies, 20 models and 15 thematic models.
Also, progress was made towards providing a serviced modelling and simulation environment by the definition and implementation of a reference interoperability architecture to describe, find, deploy, undeploy and run processing requests along with the necessary parameters and making the results available to users in an efficient manner. This architecture follows open standards and known best practices that are being tested with selected pilots. The description of the processing applications allows for interoperable deployment through the API or on cloud or HPC infrastructures.
Two workshops have been organized as a side event of the second UN Ocean Conference (June 2022) where ILIAD joined UN DITTO and EDITO. Another workshop was organized in the 2nd ILIAD General Assembly (January 2023) where pilot leaders had the opportunity to discuss the reference interoperability architecture and API for the service processing layer, get to know the standards behind it, see a hands-on tutorial on containerizing and describing models and algorithms for building processing applications while providing an overview of the needs and requirements of the pilots.
For the purposes of demonstrating the DTO impact through testing of the Pilot Context Twins (PCT), with to-date and what-if scenarios:
• Pilots mock-ups were developed and discussed with potential users
• the status of pilot development is updated monthly with pilots being prioritized in close collaboration with other WPs.
Actions to ensure that the ILIAD DTO has the desired impact with respect to DestinE, the European Green Deal and related commitments through multi-stakeholder engagement included:
- User groups and stakeholders were consulted on the design of UI and UX of the Iliad DTO Interactive Environment and the Iliad Marketplace for discovering and accessing DTOs.
- An initial dedicated workshop for UI and UX requirements and a follow-up workshop on the design of the Iliad Marketplace were held during the Iliad Plenary Meetings (Athens, June 2022 & Rome, January 2023) paving the way for the products to be prototyped and facilitating future End-user and Stakeholder participation
- Multiple stakeholders engaged through implementation of the Iliad communication, dissemination and exploitation plan.
To support industry partners to create or/and expand their portfolio of DTO and develop new business models and opportunities based on ocean data related services the team in charge of Technology Transfer and Business Development has been supporting and advising partners on potential business opportunities and has already begun developing initial business models.
An overview of the problems, solutions and potential business opportunities that have thus far been explored was established which is a prior condition to achieving the relevant KPIs such as:
● Number (#) of use cases identified, currently over 20.
● # of developed and tested mock-ups
● # of end-to-end solutions using real-world data
● # of DTO with added functionalities , with all having added functionalities and novelties beyond current state-of-the-art.
● # of collaborations with industry to ensure fast adoption
The ILIAD consortium is developing a solid and viable hub demonstrating the potential of a DTO to provide valuable insights into how marine ecosystems are affected by climate change and human activity, help policymakers make informed decisions about how to manage these ecosystems in a sustainable way and lead to new business opportunities in the Blue Economy sector. In its first year of implementation the project has made considerable progress in integrating a wide range of existing and new data sources, in transforming data into knowledge and in connecting, engaging, and empowering citizens, governments and industries. By bringing together a wide array of communities and disciplines across EU and its neighborhood, ILIAD is helping to change the way we view the Ocean and its resources.