Implementation of the Geological Data Act (Geologiedatengesetz): A digital approach of the Geological Survey of Lower Saxony

Public access to geological data, especially to data from commercial subsurface geological investigations, was claimed for a long time in the German geoscience community. Since June 30th 2020, the Geological Data Act (Geologiedatengesetz, GeolDG) regulates the public availability of this data and replaces the Mineral Act (Lagerstättengesetz) from 1934. The GeolDG implicates both duties for persons who carry out or commission geological investigations and for the competent authorities, which are Geological Surveys. The “Landesamt für Bergbau, Energie und Geologie” (LBEG), as the Geological Survey of Lower Saxony, currently designs a digital application to organize the entire notification, data management and administration procedure, including the processes of registering geological investigations, of transmitting geological data, of generating administrative decisions, and of releasing data to the public according to the given regulations and deadlines. The current online application for registering boreholes, the “Norddeutsche Bohranzeige Online”, will be adapted and implemented into the new system. Following the legal guidelines, further categories will be other site-specific geological investigations such as outcrop studies or examinations of mining sites, investigations of areas or transects such as field mapping or geophysical surveys, and re-investigations of existing geological data such as geological models or reports developed from publically available data. One objective of the new application is to enable users to correctly notify the LBEG about any kinds of geological investigations, to retrace their own notifications, and finally to upload the geological data in the requested data format.