Water quality digital twin survey

Stakeholders’ views on the creation of a Water Quality Digital Twin, for assessing the impacts of multiple stressors on standing and flowing freshwaters, were sought through an anonymous survey composed of closed and open questions. The work was funded as part of the UKSCAPE integration fund (https://ukscape. ceh.ac.uk/about ) and sought to co-develop a blueprint for a UKCEH water quality digital twin. Fifty-nine participants responded and provided a wealth of viewpoints, from academia, industry, regulators, and policy makers’ perspectives. In general, the catchment scale was considered the most feasible, useful, realistic, and deliverable scale for a Water Quality Digital Twin. Respondents considered the desired temporal scale to be dependent on the use envisaged for the digital twin. However, sub-daily or daily scales emerged as providing the most actionable knowledge if data were available and it was computationally feasible. Overall, there was consensus that nutrient concentrations were the most important determinands to include in a water quality digital twin (100% of respondents scoring these as one of their three most important determinand categories). However, several additional abiotic and biotic determinands were also scored highly, partly depending on the required use of the resultant digital twin.