Northern Ireland Groundwater Resources Map 1:250,000 (2026)

The Northern Ireland Groundwater Resources Map was produced by Geological Survey of Northern Ireland with funding from Northern Ireland Water.

This map was produced to show where groundwater resources are available in Northern Ireland. It is based on aquifer yield data held by the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) and the new aquifer classifications presented in Northern Ireland’s Groundwater Environment (Wilson et al., 2023) ( https://gsni-data.bgs.ac.uk/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/246fc03f-44aa-4178-b145-a0745aabd52a). While the map provides an estimate of the potential yields that could be abstracted by a single borehole, it is important to recognize groundwater as a valuable resource which should be used and managed sustainably as it also plays an important role in supporting surface water ecosystems. The potential for any new abstraction to impact either existing abstractions and/or groundwater flows to Groundwater Dependent Terrestrial Ecosystems (GWDTE’s) should be considered when planning for a new abstraction and will be an important aspect of the abstraction licence approval process. Therefore, this map also shows current licenced groundwater abstractions, groundwater bodies in poor quantitative status as classified by the 2021 Groundwater Directive, as well as GWDTEs.

The Bedrock and Superficial Deposits Aquifers of Northern Ireland 1:250,000 (2023) ( https://gsni-data.bgs.ac.uk/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/eeee2244-953d-4b81-8124-9e1ce602bf2e) provides the data that is presented in the maps and tables.

The aquifer summary statistics have been derived from the Northern Ireland Groundwater Data Repository. This is a database of over 2000 boreholes and springs. An index can be viewed at https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/gsni_geoindex/home.html

These attributes can be used to create bespoke groundwater maps, such as those shown on this map, relevant to the application they are being used for.

Date (Creation): 2026-03-19

Citation identifier: http://gsni-data.bgs.ac.uk/geonetwork/srv/resources/9a5354fc-8473-4d0c-880c-b52e65aa7b51

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Geological Survey of Northern Ireland		gsni@economy-ni.gov.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Not planned

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Geological Survey of Northern Ireland		gsni@economy-ni.gov.uk	Custodian

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Geology

Keywords

Groundwater
Aquifer
Hydrogeology

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: INSPIRE: no limitations

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Available under the Open Government Licence: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ We request that you acknowledge that the resource contains Geological Survey of Northern Ireland materials provided under the Open Government Licence.

Spatial representation type: Vector

Denominator: 250000

Language: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Geoscientific information

Code: NIR

Begin date: 2000-04-01

End date: 2023-03-31

Unique resource identifier: EPSG:29902

Distribution format

Name	Version
PDF	1.6

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download	https://gsni-data.bgs.ac.uk/geonetwork/srv/api/records/9a5354fc-8473-4d0c-880c-b52e65aa7b51/attachments/NorthernIrelandGroundwaterResources.pdf	Northern Ireland Groundwater Resources Map

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Pass: No

Statement: The data from the Bedrock and Superficial Deposits Aquifers of Northern Ireland 1:250,000 (2023) dataset are presented in a PDF format, with supporting tables and figures to provide a summary of groundwater potential in Northern Ireland.

Source