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The Handling of Hazard Data on a National Scale: A Case Study from the British Geological Survey

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Abstract

This paper reviews how hazard data and geological map data have been combined by the British Geological Survey (BGS) to produce a set of GIS-based national-scale hazard susceptibility maps for the UK. This work has been carried out over the last 9 years and as such reflects the combined outputs of a large number of researchers at BGS. The paper details the inception of these datasets from the development of the seamless digital geological map in 2001 through to the deterministic 2D hazard models produced today. These datasets currently include landslides, shrink-swell, soluble rocks, compressible and collapsible deposits, groundwater flooding, geological indicators of flooding, radon potential and potentially harmful elements in soil. These models have been created using a combination of expert knowledge (from both within BGS and from outside bodies such as the Health Protection Agency), national databases (which contain data collected over the past 175 years), multi-criteria analysis within geographical information systems and a flexible rule-based approach for each individual geohazard. By using GIS in this way, it has been possible to model the distribution and degree of geohazards across the whole of Britain.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is published with the permission of the Executive Director of the British Geological Survey. The author is grateful to the large number of researchers in her team at the British Geological Survey whose work this review, in part, embodies. In particular, she would like to thank her project leaders Katy Booth, John Bloomfield, Andrew Mackenzie, Don Appleton, Kathrine Linley, Emma Bee, Cathy Scheib and Marietta Garcia. She would also like to thank her former colleagues Alan Forster and Jenny Walsby who between them initiated concepts for national hazard dataset production at the British Geological Survey. Finally, she would like to thank Matt Harrison for reviewing and commenting on the initial versions of her manuscript.

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  1. British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5ED, UK

    Katherine R. Royse

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Correspondence to Katherine R. Royse.

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Royse, K.R. The Handling of Hazard Data on a National Scale: A Case Study from the British Geological Survey. Surv Geophys 32, 753–776 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-011-9141-3

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