Signal Digital twins in use for the Mar Menor, Barcelona, Singapore and Zaragoza

Summary

According to the report, the Mar Menor lagoon, the city of Barcelona and even a country such as Singapore already have digital twins. Originally built to replicate physical reality, these virtual models are now used to manage cities and territories in an integrated way and to run resources and transport networks more efficiently. Zaragoza's digital twin has been used to locate the city's heat islands and vulnerable households and to test which environmental and social policies work better in those areas. The report treats this as an example of twins moving beyond infrastructure replication to become tools for policy experiments on socio-economic issues such as pollution, segregation and housing access. Digital twins are made possible by combining the Internet of Things and AI, and they allow problems to be anticipated and solutions tested. The report adds that such tools must be used ethically so they do not reproduce existing gaps.