Destination Earth: Use Cases Analysis

Abstract

Destination Earth (DestinE) is an initiative initiated and coordinated by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) in support of the European Green Deal1 and as contribution to the establishment of the Green Deal Data Space, one of several data spaces envisaged in the European Strategy for Data (COM2020 66 final).

The overall objective of DestinE is to develop a service infrastructure that: - serves specific EU needs based on clearly identified EU policy priorities and user needs in relation to e.g. the Green Deal, and - is at the same time firmly based on European values, such as commitment to quality and transparency in order to build trust in evidence-based policy-making among all stakeholders.

DestinE will include a shared horizontal layer including computer processing, data, software, and infrastructure and some vertical applications, Digital Twins (DTs), in selected thematic areas responding to priority policy use cases. To identify these priorities, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) has been tasked by DG CNECT to collect a number of potential use cases for DestinE representing needs of policy DGs in the Commission. This document presents 30 use cases received from six policy DGs, the JRC and 5 relevant European stakeholders.

The use cases were preliminarily evaluated and clustered according to their assumed maturity level in terms of policy, scientific and anticipatory potential. Following a series of interactions with all stakeholders consulted, JRC identified two initial DTs on: - Extreme Earth issues (disaster risk management in relation to extreme weather-induced natural disasters); - Climate change adaptation issues (primarily food and water supply security).

Another DT on digital oceans (around food and energy issues) was introduced as a suggestion to DG CNECT to be possibly developed in the second phase of DestinE’s implementation.

Although this report is certainly neither exhaustive nor fully descriptive e.g. in relation to the assumed maturity levels of the mentioned use cases, it served nevertheless as a useful input to DG CNECT’s final definition of the scope of DTs whose development would be prioritized in the course of the DestinE implementation.