Climate resilient coastal urban infrastructures through digital twinning

1.1 Project Progress in Reporting Period The project made progress but faced some delays in year 2 due to staff changes, data scarcity, technical challenges, and temporary non-cooperation from Gmina Kolobrzeg. However, these delays are not expected to significantly impact overall progress. The project timeline was reviewed and updated for the upcoming project months in order to avoid significant setbacks. 1.2 WP1 - Sustainability and resilience monitoring framework of urban area Year 2 focused on data collection for U4SSC’s sustainability and climate resilience KPIs. Following the data collection, KPI computations were finalized for Norway whilst ongoing for Poland & France. To aid communication, a KPI dashboard was created, offering visual performance metrics using a lollipop chart following U4SSC methodology. Furthermore, additional data was identified & collected for the climate-related scenarios to be visualized in the participation workshops (WP2) through the digital twins (WP3). Data collection begun in Norway, focusing on Kristiansund. Data for the Polish & French scenarios were gathered in project year 3. Milestone 2: “KPI and data available for developing the DTs” was entirely achieved for Norway and in progress for Poland and France in Year 2. Deliverable 1.1: "Set of sustainability and resilience KPIs for each urban area" was postponed to project year 3 due to the departure of the post-doctoral researcher and the delay in contracting a replacement. 1.3. WP2 - Policy co-creation processes based on participatory/citizen science approach Work continued under Task 2.1 identifying key climate threat use cases in the 3 urban areas, based on year 1 research results (D2.1). Use cases were selected using the common participative methodology designed in Task 2.2 (D2.2). For the use case identification, online surveys were implemented in each country and results then consolidated into focus groups (one in each country). During the reporting period the French Focus group sessions were 15/2/24. (7 participants). From this and the 2 other focus group sessions from the previous reporting period, 3 use cases were identified: Poland: Allotment, social resilience issues, & green-blue infrastructure development, Norway: Kristiansund’s connection to the mainland during extreme weather events, France: Flooding events in Bordeaux. Preparations for co-creation/deliberation workshops (Task 2.4) and participant recruitment under Task 2.3. No deliverables were expected during this period. Milestone 1 was achieved through online surveys and focus groups. 1.4 WP3 - Digital Twins (DT) Year 2, focus was on developing beta versions of DT for the three urban areas. Some bugs were detected in the existing DT versions, that were resolved with progressive release updates to partners of AugmentCity's Sandbox software. Based on WP2 survey and focus group results, regular bi-weekly scenario-building meetings were held to with each city to further explore DT impact of understanding and decision making in the use cases in the run upto their workshops. A citizen workshop in Kristainsund and another in Kolobrzeg were held during the reporting period to demonstrate the communicative power of DT’s compared to traditional 2D means of communication. Beta versions of the DT’s for the 3 urban areas will be finalized and delivered in year 3. 1.5 - WP4 - Communication, dissemination and sustainability WP4 focused on Task 4.2 “Creation of communication and engagement” and Task 4.3 “Dissemination of results”. Activities were mainly conducted via social media and the project website, (English only). CREST’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (X) accounts were regularly updated (10, 12, and 43 posts, respectively). A new LinkedIn profile was created in Sep 2023, featuring 25 posts. Project partners engaged citizens & raised awareness of CREST through their own channels, soliciting an active role in local communities particularly focusing on the survey, which generated local campaigns. In France, a flyer with a QR code, was disseminated to citizens in the Bordeaux metropolitan area. The Futurs-ACT network and Talence’s Ambassade de la vie locale also disseminated information through newsletters and social media, reaching 3,805 emails. An article was published in a local newspaper, and FUTURS-ACT organized a webinar where ACCENT SUD presented CREST. Updates were shared on social media, including Facebook and LinkedIn accounts of Møre og Romsdal County Council, Kristiansund municipality, and Campus Kristiansund. Flyers about CREST with QR codes were distributed in public spaces. In Poland, the project was promoted through social media profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn) named Odporny Kolobrzeg, and posts in local Facebook groups. Due to elections, social media use for surveys was limited, so local actors were contacted directly. No WP4 milestones or deliverables were due in the second year.

Climate change largely impacts urban life. Extreme temperatures have an impact on sea level rise and, subsequently, nefarious events such as floods, droughts and storms have costly impacts on cities' basic services, infrastructure, housing, livelihoods and health. Cities are responsible for 75% of CO2 emissions, and so its stakeholders must come forward with out of the box solutions to promote innovation and stimulate urban resilience by limiting negative impacts of climate change. But for a problem to be addressed, it must first be seen and felt. Visualization is a potential way of increasing engagement with climate change, and IT developments, such as Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality, provide significant advancements that can be transformative in engaging audiences with climate change issues. This is at the basis of Augmentcity which developed a ground-breaking way to operate digital twins of cities, enabling data and “what-if” scenarios to be analysed and visualised in an interactive and immersive visualisation tool to be used by policy-makers, researchers, companies and citizens. Our proposal builds on AugmentCity and apply it in terms of demonstration, co-creation and mobilization of stakeholders for capacity-building and collective decision-making in 3 European urban areas for resilient urban infrastructure adaptation to climate change.