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.