The IDEATION project welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to develop a Digitalisation Action Plan for the Water Sector. As a Horizon Europe project that worked on the development of interoperable Digital Twins of Inland Waters (DTIWs) connected with the Digital Twin Ocean, IDEATION had  generated evidence on the technical, governance and implementation conditions required to accelerate digitalisation across Europe’s water sector.

Through stakeholder engagement activities covering different scenarios and involvin stakeholders from public authorities, utilities, research organisations, businesses and civil society, IDEATION identified a set of challenges that align with those highlighted in the Call for Evidence. These include fragmented digital infrastructures, limited interoperability, insufficient data sharing, governance complexity, skills shortages and barriers to the deployment of advanced digital technologies.

A key lesson from IDEATION is that interoperability must be treated as a governance requirement rather than solely a technical challenge. The project has demonstrated that Digital Twins of Inland Waters can provide a foundation for a European digital ecosystem connecting monitoring systems, models, Earth observation services, data spaces and decision-support tools across inland, transitional, coastal and marine waters. The Digitalisation Action Plan should therefore prioritise the development of common interoperability frameworks, open standards, semantic interoperability and harmonised data governance arrangements aligned with FAIR principles and existing European initiatives such as Copernicus, Destination Earth and the Digital Twin Ocean.

The project’s findings also demonstrate the importance of digital twins as enabling infrastructures for predictive and adaptive water management. By integrating real-time monitoring, modelling, forecasting capabilities, Earth observation data and artificial intelligence, digital twins can support more efficient water allocation, infrastructure optimisation, climate adaptation planning, pollution management and early warning systems for floods, droughts and water scarcity. Such capabilities are increasingly necessary to support implementation of the Water Efficiency First principle and the objectives of the European Water Resilience Strategy.

IDEATION’s research further highlights that successful digitalisation depends on stakeholder-centred approaches. There is no single digital twin model applicable to all water systems and territorial contexts. Stakeholders consistently emphasised the importance of co-designing use cases, integrating governance considerations into technical development, ensuring compatibility with existing infrastructures and adopting modular implementation pathways adapted to local needs and digital maturity levels. The Action Plan should therefore promote participatory approaches and support collaborative environments such as Living Labs that facilitate experimentation, innovation uptake and knowledge exchange.

The project also identified several enabling conditions necessary for large-scale deployment. These include robust data governance frameworks, cybersecurity-by-design, trusted artificial intelligence, sustainable financing mechanisms, digital skills development and clear responsibilities for long-term operation and maintenance. Without addressing these dimensions, the benefits of digitalisation risk remaining limited to isolated pilot projects.

Finally, IDEATION underlines the importance of viewing digitalisation as a means to improve implementation of the EU water acquis and strengthen evidence-based policymaking. Interoperable digital infrastructures can facilitate monitoring, reporting and assessment obligations while reducing administrative burdens and improving coordination across governance levels. They can also support a source-to-sea perspective by connecting inland and marine water management systems through shared digital architectures and data flows.

The Digitalisation Action Plan represents a key opportunity to set the foundations of a coherent European digital water ecosystem. Drawing on the lessons learned from IDEATION, the project encourages the Commission to prioritise interoperability, stakeholder engagement, predictive digital twins, trusted governance frameworks and long-term deployment conditions as key pillars of the future Action Plan.