Exploring European urban digital twins for climate adaptation

Cities are significant sources of emissions, bear the impacts of climate change and are at the forefront of applying new digital tools. This leads to an increased interest in how big data can be leveraged to tackle climate change impacts. One of the emerging big data applications on a city level is the urban digital twin. Current literature on urban digital twins focuses on their data and technology aspects, but studies on their implementation, use, and the role of various stakeholders involved in these remain scarce. Therefore, this study examines how urban digital twins are conceptualized and envisioned to support the decision-making process for climate adaptation measures. This study consists of a literature review and examines six European urban digital twins through eight semi-structured interviews with practitioners. The results show that the main features of the urban digital twins are connected to (1) simulations of extreme weather events and climate adaptation measures to address the impacts of these extreme weather events by city employees, and in the future, (2) co-creation of climate adaptation measures through collaborations between city employees and citizens. Both features aim to support the decision-making process within the local government. In conclusion, this article discusses practical examples of urban digital twins, revealing that more research is needed on the perspectives of the end-users of the urban digital twin and how to support them.