Improving access to geotechnical data
Ground investigations (GI) are routinely carried out prior to the construction of new buildings and infrastructure projects to assess ground conditions and identify ground hazards. It is estimated that GI data is worth £1.2 billion per year to the UK economy.
BGS received funding from the Government Office for Technology Transfer to explore ways in which the GI data held by BGS could be delivered more usefully to users and unlock its value, for example improving data accessibility and useability.
Pilot ground investigation data tools
Based on the market research led by Difference Engine, we developed a series of pilot GI data tools and services, for the Glasgow City Region for user testing. These included:
- enhanced cookie-cutter functionality within our AGS map viewer, to allow for streamlined AGS data downloads
- curated geotechnical data with geological stratigraphy (in AGS data format)
- curated geotechnical data with geological stratigraphy (in Excel format)
- geo-hex grids of summary SPT data at discrete depth intervals
- summary statistics and graphical visualisation of a suite of geotechnical parameters for a range of geological units, to aid benchmarking of site-specific datasets
The pilot GI data tools were made available under a non-commercial government licence for a 3-month trial period. The trial period has now come to a close and we will soon be initiating the next phase of the Common Ground project – if you missed the opportunity to take part in the trial but are keen to learn more about the GI data tools being developed please contact the team via commonground@bgs.ac.uk.
Glasgow SPT Geo-hex Grids
The Geo-hex Grid Dataset provides statistical summaries (mean, mode, median, standard deviation, and range) for SPT N-values within a hexagonal area at discrete depth intervals (0-2.5m, 2.5-5m, 5-10m, 10-20m, and 20+m). Information about the depth to the top and base of the geological unit, within the hexagonal area, is also shown. The dataset uses three layers of Uber’s Hexagonal Hierarchical Spatial Index, making the dataset scalable with the edge lengths of the polygons ranging from approximately 1.4 km to 200 metres. The dataset shown here is the intermediate scale dataset with a 530-metre edge length (R8).