The Digital Twins for Smart Territories consist in the development and implementation of digital twins in eight priority areas for Portugal: Health, Mobility, Decarbonization, Tourism, Civil Protection, Climate Resilience, Agriculture, and Water Management.
The solutions developed under this scope are designed to generate public value through improved forecasting, simulation, risk prevention, resource optimization, and evidence-based decision-making.
Goals
The Digital Twins for Smart Territories initiative aims to support the development of reusable digital twins that can be integrated by public administration entities, for the development of public policies and decision-making processes.
It also seeks to promote innovation and technological responsiveness across territories, while engaging the national scientific and technological ecosystem in the creation of digital solutions with a direct impact on public management and citizens’ quality of life.
All digital twins developed under this initiative must be made available in open formats, ensuring:
- Free reuse by interested public entities, reducing implementation costs in other contexts;
- Their future integration into public decision-support platforms and more effective public policy formulation.
Main features and innovations
The initiative is being developed in eight nationally prioritized thematic areas:
- Health | TwinCare – AI-Driven Digital Twins for Clinical Decision Support in Primary Care for High-Frequency Users and Osteoarthritis
This project aims to support clinical decision-making based on real-world data and simulations, improving care planning and personalisation, optimising resource use, and reducing pressure on healthcare services.
- Mobility | DT4MOB – Digital Twins for Mobility
This project aims to develop digital twins for the real-time simulation, monitoring, and management of road infrastructure and traffic.
- Decarbonization | CITY4CLIMATE – Urban Digital Twins for Climate Action
This project supports the design and implementation of City Climate Contracts (CCCs), aligned with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.
- Tourism | DT4SST-CH.PT – Digital Twins for Smart Tourism, Sustainability, and Cultural Heritage Preservation
This initiative promotes sustainable and intelligent tourism through digital solutions that enhance the authenticity and accessibility of cultural heritage.
- Civil Protection | ForestSphere – A Digital Twin Approach for Forest Monitoring and Wildfire Risk Management
The project predicts wildfire ignitions and fire spread through artificial intelligence and advanced simulations.
- Climate Resilience | DATAz – Digital Twin of the Azores Free Technology Zone
This initiative develops the first digital twin of the ocean for the Azores Free Technology Zone (FTZ) and will be integrated into the European EDITO platform and into the Portuguese National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC-PT), ensuring interoperability and scientific data sharing at the European level.
- Agriculture | VineShield-DT – Digital Twins for Pest Spread in Agriculture
This project has the objective to develop a spatio-temporal digital twin to predict and manage the spread of Flavescence Dorée (a devastating, incurable bacterial disease (phytoplasma) that attacks grapevines).
It will enable early prediction of disease outbreaks, optimise intervention strategies, and reduce dependence on pesticides.
- Water Management | TWIN-STREAM – Strategic Digital Twin Technologies for Smarter Water Management
TWIN-STREAM is a transformative project that develops digital twins for integrated water management in Portugal, combining meteorological data, satellite imagery, local sensors, and advanced hydrological models. Through real-time forecasting, interactive dashboards, and machine learning algorithms, the platform supports irrigation optimisation and the management of water scarcity and flood risks.
Impact
Expected benefits include more responsive public services, better management of scarce resources, improved citizen outcomes, and reduced operational costs across sectors such as water, health, mobility, cultural heritage, climate action, maritime governance, and agriculture.
Formal impact assessment is expected to rely on sector-specific indicators including prediction of accuracy, service performance, resource efficiency, environmental outcomes, and user satisfaction.
