Abstract:

Digital Twins have been developed as a productivity tool as part of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools used by companies to market their products. In Civil Engineering field, legal regulations require Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies to be carried out. The Environmental Impact Assessment instruments have, among other functions, the obligation to incorporate measures for the dissemination, assessment and participation of society in the analysis and decision making of the project. Regulations on Environmental Impact Studies are very ambitious in relation to social participation, but the usual practice limits the information and means of participation due to the complexity involved in the engineering processes.

Nowadays, the legal obligation to develop civil engineering projects within the framework of BIM methodologies is becoming more and more frequent, as well as the development by companies of digital models to maximize the productivity of their employees. Therefore, it would be very appropriate for such models to be used for the dissemination of the projects and the participation of society. The digital twin models are a means to facilitate the dissemination of the projects and the understanding of their activities by less specialized people. Some developers and construction companies will see these uses of digital models as a problem. To avoid this, the administration must ensure transparency and provide information that favors society's knowledge of the Project.

In this context, this paper proposes a methodology, based on digital models, to use the recommendations of the ISO 19650 standard to develop a series of activities that allow social participation in the evaluation of a Project. To achieve this, the development of theoretical and practical work on the contents and limits of Environmental Impact Studies is proposed. Focusing on the knowledge of the scope of the Environmental Impact Studies in relation to the procedures for social participation and whether society should know and be able to participate in detail in technical discussions.

The result we hope to achieve with this work is to develop a technical and social debate on the means and objectives of social participation in Environmental Impact Assessment Studies. The conclusions will be obtained a posteriori, and are determined by the assessment of the real scope of the Environmental Impact Studies and which procedures should be opened to society for its participation. The tools based on Digital Twins open up new possibilities for participation and evaluation that are much broader and enriching.

Keywords:

Digital Twin, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Building Information Modeling (BIM), ISO 19650, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Social Participation.