Please note: BGS Groundhog is a legacy product and is no longer actively supported. The most recent version – Groundhog v2.8.7 (2024) – is made available under the BGS Software Disclaimer and downloaded at the user’s own risk.
BGS Groundhog was created to visualise, model and interpret geological and environmental data. BGS has worked on Groundhog with several collaborators, these collaborations have enabled us to extend Groundhog’s usefulness for a number of sectors including the brownfield sector, Geological Survey Organisations and Universities.
The future of BGS Groundhog
BGS has taken the decision to cease funding for further development and support of Groundhog. However, maintenance builds will be produced for security issues whilst it remains feasible to do so. We greatly appreciate the support and user community that has built up around the product over the years and we are pleased to be able to offer an edition of the software containing all features and functionality. This new version will be made available under an Open Government Licence and is free to use for personal, educational and commercial purposes.
This means, as well as the existing free functionality (including creating borehole logs, importing AGS data, map overlays, drawing cross-sections), everyone will be able to access the CSM (conceptual site model) and 3D geological modelling functionality at no cost.
Installing Groundhog will also provide access to its source code. Please see the ‘src’ folder where you installed the software.
FAQs
There won’t be any further development of BGS Groundhog,
maintenance builds will be produced periodically for security
issues.
The software will continue to be available for users to download
under an Open Government Licence, on an ‘as-is’ basis, and use
at their own risk. A full user guide is provided with the software
download.
For existing commercial clients who have purchased a license
through our reseller Land Quality Management (LQM), support
will remain available for the duration of the licence,
independently of BGS. If you are a commercial user who has
purchased a license for Groundhog Professional and would like
further information, please visit www.lqm.co.uk
If you need to contact BGS regarding these changes then please e-mail enquiries@bgs.ac.uk. Please note that BGS does not offer any maintenance or support assistance for the Groundhog software.
Cyber Essentials Plus statement
Groundhog relies on third-party code libraries and comes with an embedded Java runtime environment. Every effort will be made to update dependencies when maintenance builds are produced, but there may come a time when it’s no longer possible to update all dependencies. Hence, over time these dependencies may become outdated, and may lead to security vulnerabilities. Those who download and use Groundhog should be aware of this and understand that they do so at their own risk.
Groundhog Desktop is an integrated tool for geological interpretation and modelling work. BGS © UKRI.
