The best places to spot dolphins or catch surf, and the worst places to avoid shipwreck or heavy rainfall, are now recorded on Ireland's first all-island digital marine atlas, which was launched yesterday, writes Lorna Siggins Marine Correspondent
The Marine Irish Digital Atlas (MIDA) features more than 115 maps displaying locations such as marinas, ports, conservation areas, "Blue flag" beaches and lifeboat stations, along with information on bedrock geology, territorial limits and high and low water marks.
The cross-border collaboration between University College Cork (UCC) and the University of Coleraine was endorsed at UCC yesterday by its president, Prof Gerard T Wrixon. The atlas took more than four years to develop and is maintained by UCC's Coastal and Marine Resources Centre (CMRC).
The initiative was originally funded by the Higher Education Authority, and researchers from across Europe and the US worked on the project. The atlas's "engine" involves open source computer software which has been "customised" for geographic information systems, and adapted by computer science specialists working within the CMRC.
More than 30 organisations provided data, some of which can be downloaded directly on the internet. Few national coastline atlases of this type are available, and Ireland now joins Australia, Belgium and the US state of Oregon as one of a minority with such a resource.
Information on the northeast coastline was provided by the Northern Irish Environment and Heritage Service. Valerie Cummins of the CMRC, who co-ordinated MIDA, said that the effort involved considerable teamwork among researchers and interns under a European-funded research project.
It is expected that more data layers will be added, and new tools will be developed for specific users such as secondary school pupils and marine eco-tourism operators, she said.
The internet address of the atlas is http://mida.ucc.ie