Company Profile

Two principal aspects can be distinguished in the GIS activity of the Geological Institute of Hungary. Firstly, it is responsible for providing services for other departments of the Institute and the Hungarian Geological Survey. This objective is achieved by processing data of geological mapping projects in GIS. Priority is given to the establishment of GIS databases through digital acquisition of geological information available throughout the country, their processing and analysis facilitating computer-assisted output of thematic base- and derived maps on the scale and from the area required by its customers. One of the chief aspects of the GIS activity at the Institute is to elaborate standard procedures for map processing and uniform legends enabling thus a broad range of customers to use and interpret our products. The main advantage of standard procedures is that thematic maps of any part of the country have consistent legends.

Throughout the recent years the environmental aspect of geosciences gained much importance. Following this trend the Geological Institute of Hungary has been putting great emphasis on GIS processing of its large amount of data for addressing environmental issues. These include land use management, deposition of communal, industrial, agricultural and radioactive wastes, assessment of local and regional water supplies, assessment of the effects of industrial and agricultural activity and large constructions on the environment, monitoring of the regime and quality of ground- and deep, subsurface water aquifers. These are some of the major environmental problems that cannot be addressed and reliably solved without the database and the professional knowledge of experts of the Geological Institute. Related base data is available in the data archive of the Hungarian Geological Survey, whereas GIS technology provides the indispensable tool for experts to integrate them into a topologically structured multidisciplinary database. Its sophisticated analysis results in producing specific, derived maps for decision making.

Apart from providing services for mapping projects, the GIS group of the Geological Institute puts an ever-growing effort in realising projects on contractual basis. It is the second, but increasingly important aspect of its activity. Our main customers include the Ministry for Environment and Regional Policy, the Paks Nuclear Power Plant plc and municipal authorities. Our most recent project was aimed at setting up the digital geoscientific database of the surroundings of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and selecting potential sites for its radioactive waste depository through the integration of favourable and unfavourable criteria.

The activities undertaken on contractual basis include the construction of any, non-geological GIS databases, such as electronic processing of cadastral and public utility data for municipalities. Recently we have been involved into the digital data acquisition and database construction of the system for parcel- and real estate management of the city Orosháza. It is the field where the Geological Institute will concentrate its efforts in future, namely to be engaged in digital processing of cadastral- and public utility data and providing digital data for telecommunication projects.

Using leading industry standard GIS software (both Intergraph and Arc/Info) the Institute provides customers with digital data in any standard data format existing in the market.

Another field of activity is concerned with training in application software (MicroStation 32, Intergraph MGE, MGA, MGGA, MSM, MGFN modules, Arc/Info, Oracle RDBMS).

Major GIS Projects

Complex geological GIS database of the Little Hungarian Plain (Kisalföld) and Zala county
Contracting party: Hungarian Geological Survey
Scale: 1:100000 - 1:200 000
Area: 15 000 km2

Short description:

27 thematic base and derived maps from each of the eleven, 1:100 000 scale quadrangle - thematic groups:

• Geological maps
• Geomorphological maps
• Hydrogeological maps
• Engineering-geological maps
• Agrogeological maps
• Maps for the protection of the environment
• Geophysical map
• Related tabular data includes approximately 30.000 records describing results of granulometric, hydrochemical and geochemical analyses

Digital geoscientific database of the surroundings of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant
Contracting party: Paks Nuclear Power Plant plc
Scale: 1:10 000 - 1:100 000
Area: 5000 km2

Short description:

The project is subdivided into two phases

• Phase 1: 15 thematic base maps of the 10-km-wide surroundings of the power plant with related tabular data
• Phase 2: 25 thematic base maps for site selection of the depository of low- and medium level radioactive wastes

Digital engineering-geological database of the XIVth District of Budapest
Contracting party: Municipality of the XIVth District of Budapest
Scale: 1:20 000
Area: 70 km2

Short description:

11 thematic maps - thematic groups:

• Geological maps
• Hydrogeological maps
• Engineering-geological maps

Digital engineering-geological database of Budapest Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:40 000
Area: 150 km2

Short description:

4 thematic maps - solid and drift geological map, hydrogeological map, construction suitability map

Digital municipal cadastral database of the city Orosháza
Contracting party: Municipal authority of Orosháza
Scale: 1:1000
Area: 30 km2

Short description:

93, 1:1000 map sheets - thematic maps:

• Public areas
• Residential blocks
• Parcels
• Real estates

Uniform digital geological database of Hungary
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:100 000 - 1:200 000
Area: 93 000 km2

Short description:

Geological maps

• Database architecture: 100%,
• database: 25%

DANREG - Complex digital geological database of the DANube REGion
Contracting party: Geological Surveys of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia
Scale: 1:100 000 - 1:200 000
Area: 20 000 km2

Short description:

17 thematic maps from the border area of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia - thematic groups:

• Geological maps
• Hydrogeological maps
• Engineering-geological maps
• Maps for the protection of the environment
• Geophysical maps

Digital geochemical database of Hungary
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:500 000
Area: 93 000 km2

Short description:

Maps representing the distribution of 18 chemical elements in the top- and subsoil (2 levels)

Complex digital geological database of the Transdanubian Central Range
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:100 000
Area: 15 000 km2

Short description:

geological and hydrogeological maps

Complex digital geological database of the Hungarian counties
Contracting party: Hungarian Geological Survey
Scale: 1:100 000
Area: 93 000 km2

Short description:

5 maps for each county representing a different number of themes

• Geological map and the state of surveying
• Hydrogeological map of near-surface aquifers
• Hydrogeological map of deep subsurface aquifers
• Map of vulnerability to pollution
• Map of geological hazards

Digital geological database of the Balaton Highland
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:25 000
Area: 2000 km2

Short description:

Drift geological maps (21 sheets)

Complex digital geological database of the Bükk Range
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:50 000
Area: 5000 km2

Short description:

Geological and hydrogeological maps for the hydrogeological model of the Bükk Range

Complex digital geological database of the Aggtelek-Rudabánya Range
Contracting party: Geological Institute of Hungary
Scale: 1:25 000
Area: 1000 km2

Short description:

solid geological and hydrogeological map

Co-operation in Hungary and abroad

Co-operation with Hungarian partners:

Since the GIS activity of the Geological Institute of Hungary is based on Intergraph Corporation's product family we have a very close contact with Intergraph Hungary Ltd. As Arc/Info users the same applies to GEOCOMP Ltd. Concerning projects on contractual basis we have been engaged in common projects with the PolyGIS Ltd. including as member firms, the Rudas & Karig Ltd., Memolux Ltd., Carto-Hansa Ltd., Kangyal Ltd. We have contacts with the Geometria Systems House Ltd. and the Ecoplan Ltd. as well.

Co-operation with partners abroad

We presented papers and participated as exhibitors in a number of European GIS conferences (EGIS, Geotechnica, Hannover Fair). In a number of occasions we got in touch with the European Headquarters of Intergraph Corporation in Hoofddorp (contact person: Colin Gray - responsible for Intergraph's geological software). Our co-operation was very fruitful for both parties.

During the GIS conference held on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Geological Institute last year MÁFI brought together a large number of renowned GIS specialist from all over Europe (Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Slovenia).

MÁFI has bilateral co-operation projects in the field of GIS with a number of European Geological Surveys:

• Within the framework of a co-operation project with the French Geological Survey (BRGM) we acquired the SynerGIS product for GIS processing of geochemical and environmental data.
• The DANREG project mentioned in the previous chapter was set up in co-operation between the Austrian, Hungarian and Slovak Geological Surveys. The Geological Institute of Hungary was specified as responsible for establishing the digital database in Arc/Info for being compatible with the system used in the Austrian Geological Survey.
• We have recently initiated bilateral projects with the British Geological Survey that set up a digital map production system (Intergraph) and with the Slovenian Geological Survey (Arc/Info)
• Within the framework of a co-operation project with the German Geological Survey (BGR) we studied alternatives for the disposal of radioactive wastes.
• As exhibitors we attended the Hannover Industrial Fair in 1993 and 1994 and the Geotechnica Fair in Cologne (Germany) in 1995.

Publications

I. Farkas, L. Ó. Kovács, g. Turczi (1988)
Computer-based inventory of hydrocarbon exploration drillings stored on microfilm in the national geological data archive
Földt. Kut., Band xxxi., PP. 41-46, Budapest, Hungary

I. Farkas, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1994)
GIS for environmental geological applications in the hungarian geological survey. European seminar on environmental monitoring
PP. 29-30, Paris, France

P. Scharek and t. Tullner (1994)
The first digital geological atlas in Hungary
EGIS/MARI '94 Conference Proceedings, PP. 1994-1995, Paris, France

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1993)
GIS as a basic tool in the regional and applied geological mapping of the Little Hungarian Plain
EGIS '93 Conference Proceedings, PP. 1613-1614, Genoa, Italy

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1993)
Application of gis technology in geological mapping in the hungarian geological survey. Annual report of the hungarian geological survey, 1992.

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1993)
Environmental-geological mapping of the Little Hungarian Plain
Térinformatika, vol. 1993/4, p. 9.

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1994)
Die nutzung Geographischer Informationssysteme in der regionalen und angewandten geologie
Zeitschrift für Angewandte Geologie vol. 40/2 pp. 87-91, Hannover, Germany

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1994) The digital geological map series of the Little Hungarian Plain. First european congress on regional geological cartography and information systems. Conference proceedings
Vol. 2. Abstract no. 56, Bologna, Italy

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1995)
GIS for environmental management in the Little Hungarian Plain (Kisalföld)
JEC '95 conference proceedings, vol. 1. Pp. 361-367, the hague, the netherlands

P. Scharek, T. Tullner and G. Turczi (1995)
Digging deeper: Hungarys geological survey increases its GIS activity
GIS Europe Magazine May 1995, pp. 28-30.

G. Turczi (1988)
Modernisation of prediction of bauxite resources using remote sensing and computer-assisted methods).

G. Turczi (1992)
Application of GIS in geology
Computerworld, vol. VII/5, Budapest, Hungary

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