Fugro joins the Horizon Europe-funded project OCEANITY to co-design decision-ready applications for coastal and marine stakeholders within EDITO – the European Digital Twin Ocean. OCEANITY will enable governments, industries and citizens to test the outcomes of their decisions before they act. It will provide the insights needed to navigate growing climate and environmental challenges.
Europe’s coastal zones and oceans serve many interconnected needs, from protecting communities and ecosystems to supporting maritime industries. Decisions made today about our coasts and oceans will shape communities for generations. Climate change, environmental stressors and growing demands on marine space are making those choices increasingly complex. Effective action depends on reliable insights, but decision-makers often can’t have a clear view of the outcomes.
The OCEANITY project aims to change that. Europe’s Digital Twin Ocean combines advanced modelling, artificial intelligence, Earth observation, and socio-economic data, enabling coastal communities, governments and maritime industries to explore "what-if" scenarios before taking action, and demonstrating how different choices may affect people, ecosystems and economies.
Fugro is co-designing the EDITO applications and managing stakeholder engagement activities, helping connect the technology to user needs and real-world use cases while supporting deployment of the applications. EOMAP, a Fugro company, contributes Earth observation insights, platform components and a virtual reality environment supporting the Coastal & Urban Resilience application, alongside outreach activities.
Running from September 2026 to August 2029, the project will develop three user-driven applications focused on Coastal & Urban Resilience, Marine Spatial Planning and Sustainable Maritime Operations. Each will be co-designed with the people who will use it and demonstrated across Europe’s four sea basins, ensuring the tools address real challenges rather than theoretical ones. OCEANITY is delivered by a strong consortium led by CMCC (the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change), bringing together perspectives from across the private sector, academia, SMEs and research institutions to ensure the tools reflect the full range of real-world needs.
“The technology behind a digital twin is remarkable, but its real power lies in the decision-making it enables. Our role in OCEANITY is to make sure that power reaches the people who need it, the coastal communities, planners and industries facing hard choices every day. By designing these tools around real needs from the start, we can turn ocean data into confident action for a more resilient, sustainable future," says Pooja Mahapatra, Head of Product for Climate & Nature at Fugro.
