OneGeology : improving access to geoscience globally

Contributing scientific solutions to the challenges of landslides and earthquakes, minerals and mining, water supply and flooding, pollution and erosion, and — not least — climate change and energy supply, depends absolutely on geological data. Like most things environmental, few of these challenges respect national or scientific domain frontiers and if we want to assess and address these environmental challenges holistically then we need access to holistic data too. Rich environmental data does exist in each nation, but when it is available, and in many instances it is exceptionally difficult to discover, then it exists in different formats and via different services, with different access conditions. OneGeology is a global initiative to improve the accessibility of one fundamental environmental dataset — geological map data. In addition it is improving the interoperability of those data and the exchange of knowhow and experience. OneGeology has been hugely successful and today 116 nations are participating, with 50 of those nations serving geological data to a dynamic web map portal.