The GAIA Geohazard Digital Twin

What is a geohazard digital twin?¶

A digital twin of the critical zone is a continuously updated, physically consistent model of the land surface and shallow subsurface that lets us monitor, nowcast, and forecast the susceptibility of geohazards — landslides, liquefaction / ground failures, and floods. It blends real-time observations, physics-based and surrogate models, and weather/climate forcing into a single decision-relevant system.

The three pillars¶

How the pillars map to the GAIA platforms¶

The pillars are the workflow spine; they are implemented on the existing GAIA infrastructure:

• DataHub stages the multi-agency, multimodal observations that feed Pillar 1.

• ModelHub hosts the state-estimation, susceptibility, and surrogate models that drive Pillars 2 and 3.

• HazEvalHub defines the metrics and leaderboards that make each pillar’s output trustworthy and actionable.

The pillars predict the Hazards targets and rest on the Earth System Science that governs water and stress in the critical zone.

Shared state-variable notation¶

(To be filled — define the variables that flow between pillars, e.g. soil moisture $\theta(x,t)$, water-table depth $d_{wt}(x,t)$, saturation $S_w$, effective stress, and the hazard susceptibility indices, consistent with Soil Hydromechanical Memory.)

Open questions & roadmap¶

• How do we keep the reanalysis, nowcast, and forecast physically consistent across pillars?

• What is the right interface (data contract) between pillars?

• See DOCS_ROADMAP.md for phased plan and owners.

References¶