Epa Geoportal

The EPA Map is a custom built webGIS that allows you to view and access EPA data. You can access EPA Map from your computer or mobile device.

The EPA GeoPortal Get data allows you to view and access all EPA data available for download, links to the ISDE Metadata Catalog and connect to EPA WMS Services.

The EPA GeoPortal See Maps functionality allows you to access many other EPA WebGIS.

Ask & Learn provides you three important areas of the GeoPortal:

• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) - to help find answers to questions that you may have.
• Learn About Data - to help you undertand the EPA data resources available to you.
• Latest Releases - to help keep you up-to-date on newly released or updated EPA data resources.

Contact Us enables you to get in touch with the GIS team here at the EPA should you, for example:

• have a query about data;
• request credentials for licenced data;
• need to report a bug for applications;
• give feedback;
• have a query about metatdata;

The EPA GeoPortal was developed by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency to improve access to geographic data relating to Ireland’s environment. You can use it to access our WebGIS data browsers, find and download EPA GIS data and connect to the Irish Spatial Data Exchange catalogue.

The look and feel of the new application is different to the older applications but there are many benefits to the changes we have made.

There is a complete Help Document available here.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for there you can always Contact Us.

Next Generation EPA Maps is the new version of EPA Maps available through the new unified GIS application.

The data layers available in the themes of this site are organised in line with the themes of Ireland's Environment, but there’s also lots more data layers available for you to view through the WMS layers tool in the application.

You can find more information on the new functionalities in the Help Document available here.

In time yes, but we will run both the old and the new versions for a time to allow stakeholders to become familiar with the new application.

The Sewage Treatment Site offers the public supporting mapped information to the recently released EPA report entitled Urban Waste Water Treatment in 2016.

Click here to access the published report - Urban Waste Water Treatment in 2016.

Further background information on Urban Waste Water in Ireland is available on the main EPA website here.

Click here to view the Help Document for the how to use the online GIS.

Timpeall an Ti means “around the house” and this application is designed to let you search for environmental information about your own local area as simply as possible.

Start your search by either entering your address, or using the “Point” button to click your location on the map. The default search distance is 1km, but you can select other distances up to 15km from the Search Radius dropdown.

Two types of result are returned:

• “What is around you” results are presented at the top. They are the list of all the features that have been returned from your search for the distance you selected. They are divided into 4 groups: Air, Water, Licensed activities and historic mines. To make the data appear on the map, check the checkbox. Clicking the globe will zoom to that feature on the map. If the feature has a link icon you can click this to see more data about it. The More Information button will provide some more background information about how this data was collected and what the different results mean.
• “About your point” results are presented lower down in the list. These results are derived on an “x marks the spot” basis: for example, the soil and subsoil type, whether you are in a smoky coal restricted area, the name of your river catchment area, the risk ranking of your location for domestic waste water treatment. Each result has a short text description of the content of the data, which you can open by clicking on the underlined text.

Timpeall an Ti is designed to present a “what’s in my backyard” view of data. For this reason there are very few extra tools presented on this application, and the data results are framed by the search radius you select.

To see data for larger areas, or to print and download GIS data, you should use the EPA Maps tool which can be launched from the Map button or by selecting EPA Maps from the See Maps page.

Please see the My Local Environment/Timpeall an Ti help video.

Envision Base Mapping

All base mapping on the EPA Envision site is the direct property of the Ordnance Survey Ireland and, as such, an appropriate licence would need to be obtained directly from OSI should you wish to use any of their base mapping displayed. Under the terms of licence that we, the EPA, have with OSI, you are permitted to make one map for inclusion within a report directly from the Envision website, with copyright notice visible.

Please contact Ordnance Survey Ireland directly OSI Copyright.

This data will be in the format of Reports, Guidance Notes, ESRI shapefiles and geodatabases, as well as Microsoft excel spreadsheets.

EPA Geoportal

The EPA Ireland’s Geoportal (GetData) is a great resource for environmental data. All data is available freely for download from the site. It is not permitted to distribute to a third party for commercial benefit as it has been made freely available to all.

Rivers and Lakes data

The OSI have made the Geometric River Network and Lake Segment data freely available to All as 'Open Data. The dataset is the property of Ordnance Survey Ireland.

Please visit Get Data to download.

You will need to contact Ordnance Survey Ireland for information regarding commercial use of the data and Copyright Information.

For all queries please contact Digital Sales in Ordnance Survey Ireland.

• Ordnance Survey Ireland: http://www.osi.ie
• Ordnance Survey Ireland: OSI Copyright Information
• Ordnance Survey Ireland: OSI Contact Us

National Soils and Sub-soils data

With respect to the purchase/licence of the National Soils and Sub-Soils data please note that the text below outlines the conditions of usage. This dataset is jointly owned by Teagasc and The EPA:

The EPA cannot commercially charge for access or provision of this data, it has been made freely available for download from the Envision Geoportal Download section;

The end user cannot charge for access or provision of this data to third party clients;

The end user may charge for work resulting from the use of this data, but explicitly not for the data.

CORINE data

Corine data cannot be used for commercial use, you receive the data for non-commercial use only, please note that the text below outlines the conditions of usage. These datasets are owned by the EPA and the EEA.

The EPA agrees to provide the applicant with the relevant dataset and grants the applicant permission to use the dataset subject to the following conditions and the attached disclaimer:

• The applicant agrees not to give access to, or provide copies of the dataset, or any part thereof, to others, either in the format as provided by the Competent Authority directly, or as adapted. Others wishing to obtain the data should apply on a separate form. The applicant also agrees not to re-sell the dataset, in whole or in part. The applicant agrees, upon receiving the product(s):

• to provide the EPA with details of the individual or organisation using the product(s) and the responsible persons in charge;
• to report to the EPA on any findings related to the product(s) received (errors, omissions) and assist the EPA in improving the respective products;
• to report to the EPA on all applications developed based on the data provided and supply complete information and relevant materials produced on this basis to the EPA;
• to acknowledge the data source in all related publications or other dissemination media as the EPA;
• to submit to the EPA any request for distribution of National CORINE product(s) addressed to them and inform the potential users that the EPA is the responsible body in charge with the commercial dissemination of the National CORINE products;
• to refrain from any actions/activities affecting the full exercise of the ownership rights and of the copy rights by the EPA in relation to the National CORINE products.

The applicant agrees to inform the EPA of any intended change of use in advance.

The applicant agrees to return the datasets to the EPA and to delete them from all storage media when their use for the stated purposes no longer applies.

We, the EPA, we are happy for you to use both datasets internally, as long as the EPA (and the EEA for Corine or Teagasc for Soils and Subsoils) are acknowledged as the source.

You no longer need to request the Generalised Rivers and Lakes dataset as Ordnance Survey Ireland have made the Geometric River Network and Lake Segment data freely available to All as 'Open Data. The dataset is the property of Ordnance Survey Ireland.

Please visit Get Data to download.

You will need to contact Ordnance Survey Ireland for information regarding commercial use of the data and Copyright Information.

For all queries please contact Digital Sales in Ordnance Survey Ireland.

• Ordnance Survey Ireland: http://www.osi.ie
• Ordnance Survey Ireland: OSI Copyright Information
• Ordnance Survey Ireland: OSI Contact Us

Please see this document for information about river waterbodies.

Please see this document for information about ground waterbodies.

The GeoPortal pages and tools are designed to work with all mainstream web browsers and personal computers, though not for smaller devices such as mobile phones.

We notify users of planned maintenance via our Latest News pages, please check here to make sure that the page you want to use isn’t undergoing maintenance at present. Once we become aware of a fault on one of our pages, we post updates to the Latest News pages.

Sometimes users may have problems accessing GeoPortal tools and pages because of IT security policy within their own organisation: please get in touch with your own IT department to check if this might be the issue.

If you cannot access a part of the GeoPortal after checking these items please use the Contact Us link: to help us resolve your problem faster please include details of the web browser you are using and any error message you may be getting.

You will find national data relating to many environmental themes, including:

• Corine;
• Soils and SubSoils;
• EPA Licenced Facilities;
• Water/Water Framework Directive;
• Water Quality and Monitoring;
• Historic Mines;
• Extractive Facilities Register;
• Dumping at Sea;
• PRTR Facilities.

This data will be in the format of Reports, Guidance Notes, ESRI shapefiles and geodatabases, as well as Microsoft excel spreadsheets.

You do not need to register to use the Geoportal as all of the datasets that are made available for download are freely available to all.

The EPA holds data under all annexes so must supply metadata, data and web services according to the deadlines set by the INSPIRE directive.

Under annex I, the EPA holds data under the hydrography theme as a result of work done for the Water Framework Directive. Our metadata for this data is published via the Irish Spatial Data Exchange project and you can access ISDE from the Get data page of this Geoportal.

The EPA are members of the INSPIRE/Irish Spatial Data Infrastructure (ISDI) group lead by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. This group co-ordinate activities related to INSPIRE compliance and the establishment of procedures and standards that would contribute to the creation of a national SDI. The Ordnance Survey of Ireland are leading a project to develop a national Geoportal for all INSPIRE data. The EPA is currently working with the OSI to publish hydrography data to this geoportal.

The Irish Spatial Data Exchange is a Discovery Service guided by the INSPIRE Directive. A discovery service makes it possible to search for spatial datasets, services and applications on the basis of the content of the corresponding metadata (i.e. description) and to display the content of the metadata. The INSPIRE Directive aims to establish an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community, to allow public access to environmental information and re-use of public sector information ISDE Catalogue.

EPA MAPS is intended to assist anyone with an interest in environmental data to access geographical data produced by the EPA. Much of the data you can view and query on EPA MAPS is also available to download either directly from EPA Map or from the Data Download option of the EPA GeoPortal.

Go to EPA MAPS and become familair with the map environment and the tool set that is available to you.

Using the Search and Key word search you can find address data, as well as retrieve data on many environmnntal topics of interest.

It is also possible to download data directly from EPA MAPS using the Download GIS Data tools at the bottom of the Table of Contents.

EPA MAPS is located within the GeoPortal. If you click Map, located along the top toolbar you will be automatically redireteced to the EPA MAPS page.

You can download data directly from EPA MAPS using the Download GIS Data. Choose which dataset you would like to download and click GET DATA.

Or, you can go to the EPA DATABASE to choose which dataset you would like to download.

Only EPA data is available for download, Ordnance Survey Ireland data must be sourced directly from the OSI.

Please note that when you download data it is only possible to downlaod one dataset at a time.

There is currently no print option on this version of EPA MAPS. We hope to include this at a later stage however, in the meantime please use the print screen option on your keyboard and paste the map image into Paint or MS Word for use.

EPA MAPS Base Mapping

All base mapping on the EPA MAPS site (http://gis.epa.ie) is the direct property of the Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI) and, as such, an appropriate licence would need to be obtained directly from OSI should you wish to use any of their base mapping displayed.

Under the terms of licence that we, the EPA, have with OSI, you are permitted to make one map for inclusion within a report directly from the Envision website, with copyright notice visible.

To obtain a copy of this mapping data for your area of interest you would need to contact Ordnance Survey Ireland directly: OSI Contact Us.

You may be able to obtain access to this data should your institute of study have an Academic Licence Agreement in place with Ordnance Survey Ireland. Please get in touch with the relevant persons within your institue to find out.

To search for a townland you need to first expand the 'General Administrative' folder in the Table of Contents where the townlands layer is in Map.

You will notice that Townlands is greyed out. This is because there is a layer dependency on that layer meaning that it can only be made visible when you are zoomed in further on the map. Keep zooming in on the map until you can toggle on/off the layer visibility (i.e. click the tick box beside the layer name).

Make the layer visible, and then go to the Search tab along the top. In the Key word Tool, type in the name of the townland you are looking for in the space provided. Click on the SEARCH button when you are finished typing. The result of the townland search will appear in the Result pane on the left hand side.

If your townland does not appear, it may be spelt differently in our database. It is possible to only write in the first few letter of the townland, bearing in mind that the SEARCH functionality will return everything with that sequence of letters.

Use the arrow to the right of the Townland name to see extra information for a townland or click on the zoom to feature button to zoom to that townland.

The Address tool uses the Geodirectory to search for a specific address and zoom to it.

To search for an address go to the Search tool, type the address in the empty Address search space provided.

Suggested matches will appear in a preview window and you can select one from the list. Click on the SEARCH tool to the right of the Address search box, zooming to your address.

If you do not see your address in the suggestions list as there is more than one possible match for the address, such as in a house in an estate, all the potential matches for that address appear automatically in the Results window. Click on the 'zoom to' button in the Results panel to zoom to a location.

• Go to the Map tab and zoom to your area of interest
• Expand the Table of Contents on the left hand side and go to the Surface Water Quality group
• Now turn on the River Water Quality layer
• Using your Identify features by tool in the top toolbar, draw a rectangle around the River Water Quality point of interest
• The Results tab will now populate on the left hand side of MAPS
• Click on the Show Report icon.
• A pdf report will generate for this station. It is possible to download and save this Report by clicking on the .pdf icon at the top of the Report.

The EPA Map viewer has been provided to enable visitors visualise environmental data and is intended as a tool for the personal investigation of environmental issues. Data portrayed on the viewer has been provided by a number of sources:

1. Environmental Protection Agency
2. Geological Survey of Ireland
3. Teagasc
4. National Parks and Wildlife Service

The EPA does not guarantee the accuracy of data presented on this viewer and is not responsible for incorrect interpretation. If accuracy is important, it is recommended that you obtain a copy of the original maps on which the information is based and verify its accuracy.

National Soils Database

The soils classification data associated with spatial points on the map cannot be used at a local scale, as this information is derived form a scale of 1:575,000 generalised soil map of Ireland and therefore should be used with caution when describing point or small scale data.

When using the NSDB datasets maps you are required to cite the original source of these resources. This citation must include the names of the original authors of the project or resources. To see a proposed citation from the EPA ERC Safer website click here.

Please use the Contact Us page, stating clearly which data you require.

Please select “Query about data” from the Topic dropdown list.

Currently there are no measurement tools available on the Map.

We would hope to develop and make these tools available at some point in the future.

There is a scale bar on the bottom left of the Map view. This automatically updates as you zoom in and out of the MAP.

You can contact the GIS team using Contact Us page.

Please select "Give Feedback" from the Topic dropdown list.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), Web Map Service (WMS) specification is an international specification for serving and consuming dynamic maps on the web.

Web Mapping Services are a useful way to make you map images available online to others across many platforms; they can use and work with your service. Please note however that the map images returned by a WMS service do not contain actual data.

WMS services are now available through the GeoPortal Connect section.

Please consult your software's help documentation on how to add the WMS.

The full list of WMS are:

• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/AirQuality/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/DumpingatSea/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/DWWA/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/GeneralGazetteer/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/GroundwaterQuality/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/Land/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/LicenceandEnforcement/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/NationalSoilsDatabase/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/SurfaceWaterQuality/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/UWWT/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/WaterFeatures/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/WaterRegions/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/WFDRegisterofProtectedAreas/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/WFDRiskScores/MapServer
• http://gis.epa.ie/arcgis101/rest/services/EPAMapServices/WFDStatus/MapServer

The EPA have made all of their data available to the public in the format of web mapping services (wms);

• Air Quality
• Dumping at Sea
• DWWA
• General Gazetteer
• Groundwater Quality
• Land
• Licence and Enforcement
• National Soils Database
• Surface Water Quality
• UWWT
• Water Features
• Water Regions
• WFD Register of Protected Areas
• WFS Risk Scores
• WFD Status

Please use Connect to access these services.

Some technical details

EPA MAPS was developed using mainly JavaScript and HTML, however, some of the server components are .NET WCF. We have used:

1. ESRI JavaScript API;
2. JQuery;
3. Dojo;
4. OpenLayers.

JavaScript Libraries on the client side; and following products on the server side:

1. RESTFul web services with WCF;
2. ESRI ArcGIS Server;
3. MS SQL Server 2008 and Reporting Services;
4. GeoServer as WFS (OGC Web Feature Service) Server for Downloads;
5. GeoNetwork as CS/W (OGC Cataloue Service For the Web) Metadata Catalogue Server for ISO 19115 and INSPIRE Metadata.

We have tested the Envision and believe that it is fully compatible with the following browsers:

1. Internet Explorer 8+;
2. Firefox 3.5+;
3. Chrome;
4. Opera;
5. Safari 3+.

EPA MAPS can be used with older versions of Internet Explorer (IE 7 and IE 8) but there are some small limitations in the display when these versions are used.

It is not possible to add your own data to the MAP viewer. All data that is displayed is owned and managed by the EPA.

You can only download one dataset at a time. All files for download are presented as zipped files which contain ESRI Shapefiles, text documents or Microsoft excel spreadsheets. All zipped files are less than 24MB in size.

Where possible, files are presented nationally but for large datasets (Corine, Soils, Subsoils) this has not been possible and the .zip files are presented on a county by county basis. Please be aware that files may take some time to download.

Should you wish to obtain a national copy of a dataset please Contact Us selecting “Query About Data” from the dropdown Topic list.

We can supply data on CD if required. Please Contact Us explaining your request and select “Query About Data” from the dropdown Topic list.

A series of EPA GeoPortal Help Videos have been created that will allow you to become familar with the many tools available on EPA Maps as well as an introduction to My Local Environment / Timpeall an Ti website. Please see the videos listed below:

1. How to Get Data from the EPA GeoPortal;
2. How to Navigate the EPA GeoPortal;
3. How to Search the EPA GeoPortal;
4. How to use the EPA GeoPortal Map Transparency Tool;
5. How to use the EPA My Local Environment.

The Historic Mines site data has been incorporated into the EPA Map viewer.

The Mine Reports can be found within the GeoPortal EPA DATABASE.

Try right clicking the link and opening in a new window, or copying the hyperlink and opening in a new window.

The design of this GeoPortal was delivered by Lonely Lama.

Thank you to John Doheny for permission to use his fantastic photographs throughtout this site.

For assistance or information about any of the tools, information or data supplied by the EPA GeoPortal please use Contact Us to contact the GIS Team directly.