TODO A range of visualisations have been developed to be used with these protocols, and underlying concepts are described on a set of pages in a web portal with links to other related concepts and to relevant data sources.
Given the lower technical demands of a loose coupling digital twin, it is possible to implement it solely as a repository of static content, as a kind of “knowledge hub”, wiki or portal. This project is currently testing the idea of a public facing web portal, a central destination that provides curated (but no-warranty) information supporting landholder land and water management. It would include regulatory approval processes as well as pages describing resources and data sources for key features of the system. The project has been pursuing the hypothesis that NRM agencies are well placed to facilitate local engagement in water governance outside of formal water planning processes. The proposed portal plays to the strengths of NRM agencies as knowledge and relationship brokers, linking local, state, and regional government agencies as well as civil society, landholders and Aboriginal groups. A web portal provides a repository of knowledge for the NRM agency’s stakeholders and staff, an additional entry point to engage with existing NRM services, and a further opportunity to play a knowledge content curation role. Such a portal would add value by selecting, organising and looking after specific information related to NRM in the region. A web portal digital twin distinguishes itself from other forms of web portal in two key ways: 1) its emphasis on representing a specific system, and 2) the provision of a platform for progressive improvement rather than a feed of articles or a one-shot definitive reference on a topic. The aim of a web portal digital twin is firstly to describe knowledge about a catchment, and only secondly to connect to more generic or transferable knowledge about developments or practices to implement in that catchment. The portal therefore provides a context for conversations about investments, research, or data collection that is anchored to the specifics of a place, and that is expected to change over time as the catchment itself changes. In order to provide a platform for progressive improvement, change needs to be managed within a stable structure that evolves gradually over time, contrasting with feeds of articles that accumulate without necessarily replacing previous knowledge, or a definitive reference work that is not expected to evolve at all. Within the framework of a loose coupling digital twin, progressive improvement of the web portal has specific implications for maintenance. Content needs to be marked as deprecated as soon as possible to ensure portal does not provide out of date information and clearly communicates that information is missing, but resources may not be available to immediately add replacement content. Maintenance of the portal would therefore be based on specific triggers complemented by an opportunistic adaptive planning approach. Automated link checking would feed into a process to regularly fix or mark links as broken. Formal processes would be defined to ensure the digital twin reflects changes to policy processes in other agencies. Feedback mechanisms would be clearly labelled to enable the digital twin custodian (e.g. the NRM agency) to evaluate interest and identify gaps. Clear invitations to contact the NRM agency would link into organisational services outside of the portal (e.g. supporting landholder GIS management). Updates to content would be built into projects and forward investment planning by collaborating agencies, informed by the value that participants are seeing in the platform and the observed degradation of value as it becomes outdated. The update policy for the portal would be clearly stated and reinforced as a design feature. At the same time, the portal provides a clear pathway to add more advanced dynamic capabilities using the “shared coupling” approach. If sufficient long-term funding is committed, then live connections to external data sources can be provided with interactive interfaces to allow, for example, real-time exploration of catchment conditions. Even in this case, a clear mechanism would be defined for putting the portal back into a “probationary” state if its maintenance is at risk. This ensures a clear sunsetting pathway if the portal is not deemed worthy of investment, and provides an incentive for benefitting stakeholders to support its sustainability. For example, a 6-month warning of the closure of the portal might lead to a spike in interest, which may or may not be followed by offers to try to keep it open, depending on its value. Explicit deprecation of outdated context is important in order to avoid a situation where the portal is being kept alive for perceived value of its archive of knowledge. We want to be clear that we do not consider an archive to be of value if it is not being maintained – we need the portal to be up-to-date to represent the time-varying state of the system. Arrangements could be made for archiving of the portal over time but retaining archives of knowledge is a responsibility for libraries , not for the custodian of a digital twin. In a sense, a web portal digital twin promises to provide the core of a learning-focused digital twin in a flexible, low cost, low commitment manifestation, with minimal requirements other than (1) static web hosting, (2) subject matter expertise to update content as needed, and (3) the ability to support inquiries. While a loose coupling digital twin does not provide the rich experience promised by a tighter coupling – and creation or update of content requires manual intervention from an analyst – the transaction costs of engaging with the digital twin can be gradually reduced over time and further interactive capabilities can always be added once the benefits of the investment and ongoing