ECITO aims at raising public awareness of the effects of climate change by visualizing its consequences. Scientific data is effectively communicated by utilizing Augmented Reality (AR) technology, providing an immersive experience for comprehending and assessing future environmental changes.

 The project focuses on the implementation of an interactive AR visualization of the estimated future sea level rise on the coastal area of the old city of Chania in Crete, Greece. Coastal data are available through the Mediterranean Coastal Database and various regionalized sea level rise scenarios have been formulated up to the year 2100. The location-aware system enables the user to select between these scenarios, control the year range and activate 3D water simulations on different locations along the area, in order to witness the sea level  rise impact on site and in real time. The system is developed for the Microsoft’s Hololens 2 headset, expanding the device’s usage to outdoor environments by tackling technical challenges such as spatial awareness and mapping and the registration of digital content onto the real-world. ECITO addresses those issues by integrating GPS data from an external source via WiFi network, providing constant location tracking and driving the accurate placement of the 3D simulations in the physical environment, while also facilitating the implementation of previously non-existent navigation services on the Hololens device. 

By placing predicted environmental scenarios in their actual physical settings, ECITO intends to incite immediate comprehension of the environmental changes and the associated hazards while shortening the gap between scientific data and public perception.