Geological Survey Ireland’s Groundwater and Geothermal Unit, provides advice, data and maps relating to groundwater distribution, quality and use, which is especially relevant for safe and secure drinking water supplies and healthy ecosystems.

Proposed developments need to consider any potential impact on specific groundwater abstractions and on groundwater resources in general. We recommend using the groundwater maps on our Map viewer which include:

Background information is also provided in the Groundwater Body Descriptions. Please read all disclaimers carefully when using Geological Survey Ireland data.

A Groundwater Protection Scheme (GWPSs) provides guidelines for the planning and licensing authorities in carrying out their functions, and a framework to assist in decision-making on the location, nature and control of developments and activities in order to protect groundwater. Geological Survey Ireland has completed Groundwater Protection Schemes in partnership with Local Authorities, and there is now national coverage of GWPS mapping. The Groundwater Protection Response overview and link to the main reports is here. 

Our marine environment is hugely important to our bio-economy, transport, tourism and recreational sectors. It is also an important indicator of the health of our planet. Geological Survey Ireland’s Marine and Coastal Unit in partnership with the Marine Institute, jointly manages INFOMAR​, Ireland's national marine mapping programme; providing key baseline data for Ireland’s marine sector. The programme delivers a wide range of benefits to multi-sectoral end-users across the national blue economy with an emphasis on enabling our stakeholders. Demonstrated applications for the use of INFOMAR's suite of mapping products include Shipping & Navigation, Fisheries Management, Aquaculture, Off-shore Renewable Energies, Marine Leisure & Tourism and Coastal Behaviour.

INFOMAR also produces a wide variety of seabed mapping products that enable public and stakeholders to visualize Ireland’s seafloor environment.

Story maps have also been developed providing a different perspective of some of the bays and harbours of the Irish coastline. We would therefore recommend use of our Marine and Coastal Unit datasets available on our website.

GWClimate is a groundwater monitoring and modelling project that aims to investigate the impact of climate change on groundwater in Ireland. This is a follow on from a previous project (GWFlood) and the data may be useful in relation to Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) and management plans. 

Karst can form on any rock that is soluble in water. This can be gypsum and other evaporate rock, but in Ireland most karst is found in Carboniferous Limestones. For areas underlain by limestone, please refer to the karst specific data layers:

Geological Survey Ireland has two main databases that are specific to karst; The National Karst Landform database and the National Water Tracing database. Both databases are available as a downloadable shapefile for use in GIS or can be viewed and queried on the our Groundwater online viewer.