For long, the term digital, in all its connotations, has been a recurring keyword in the field of geospatial. Digital versions of analogue technologies have led to robust data acquisition, storage and analysis systems.
Digital data is ubiquitous, persistent, and immutable over generations, thus enabling sharing and multiple use-cases. The evolution of common data standards, within and across the systems, has led to widespread use of data for a range of purposes.
Urban planning and management is one of the areas where this is most visible. Architecture, Engineering and Construction ( AEC) started with simple maps, then moved towards digitization and CAD, and from 2D to 3D, onto GIS integration.
Today, Digital Twins has become the trending buzzword. It constitutes an entire virtual representation of a real world environment that can be created using CAD, BIM and GIS.
By adding data from IoT enabled devices, the changes in the real world can be replicated in the virtual world enabling better and efficient management of the urban environment.
Digital Cities represents another aspect of Industrial Revolution 4.0 where people, data, processes and objects form a virtual continuum in a digital representation of the world.
While Digital Twins replicate the inanimate world, the Metaverse has the capability to populate such an environment with avatars of real persons. Just like in movies, these avatars can virtually visit locations which would be difficult to access physically.
While the urban landscape does provide the most visible example of such an integration, it leaves no doubt that this concept can be extended to other areas.
As an example, the European Commission is promoting a concept of Destination Earth where Digital Twins will be used to model the global weather and be able to predict weather extremes and climate scenarios.
Geospatial systems are used in many fields, urban planning being one of them. However, all individual systems like urban, agriculture, forestry, to name a few, are also intimately interrelated and each has its influence on the other in complex ways. The future therefore is not only Digital Cities, but Digital Everything.
The task of Digital Cities itself is humongous. The evolution of the technology itself, particularly from the points of interoperability, scalability and openness is yet to be achieved in full measure.
The human dimension has to be addressed by internalizing the requirements of sustainability and resilience, not only by the administration and industry but also by mainstreaming social inclusion in all types of projects and throughout all project phases.
If we can achieve this in all other spheres, then we can begin to work towards Digital Everything.
In the future, issues of security, safety and privacy will get more complicated. Social and human factors may be impacted as well as we move into a Digital Universe. The road ahead is difficult but challenging nevertheless.
Disclaimer: Views Expressed are Author's Own. Geospatial World May or May Not Endorse it
