A Whole-of-Government Approach to Climate change and the Process of Making Cities Resilient: Constructing a Digital Twin Network for Urban Adaptation

Adaptation to our new climate reality has become a task at hand. Cities are currently making an effort to survey their level of vulnerability and resilience, to draw up and implement adaptation strategies, to reduce the risk for extreme natural events to entail a disaster. Multiple and diverse stakeholders have to work together to allow for this process to be successful. An interactive urban digital twin could be a valuable tool to achieve this. The tool should provide assistance for mastering all the steps of this iterative process, from assessment to implementation to monitoring. In order to boost effectiveness, we seek to harness the strength of reciprocity, organizing new ways of communication that are bound to the concept of solution-oriented feedback and feedforward. Our design allows occasion- and task-related communication activities and continually growing modes of cooperation and new partners. Stakeholders facing similar challenges in adaptation processes can benefit from best practice examples and lessons learned, share experiences, consolidate a common understanding and commitment and support each other working toward goals. Thus, following a whole-of-government approach, the digital twin will become the central building block of a new network and information infrastructure.