IGC Presentation. Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya

The Parliament of Catalonia approved, with the Law 19/2005, the establishment of the Geological Institute of Catalonia, with its own legal personality and fully qualified to operate for exercise its functions.

With Decree 170/2013 of 28 May, amending Decree 342/2011 of 17 May, the restructuring of the Department of Planning and Sustainability, the Geological Institute of Catalonia remains attached to the Department of Planning and Sustainability through the Secretary of Infrastructure and Transport.

Therefore, the geology of Catalonia is consolidated: in 1874 the canonja Jaume Almera initiated both tasks of teaching and research activities in this area, and in 1884, the Regional Government of Barcelona entrusted him the accomplishment of a geological map of Barcelona surroundings. In 1916, the Commonwealth of Catalonia created the Geological Survey of Catalonia (SGC) with the mission to continue the geological works in Catalonia. The Geological Survey of Catalonia subsisted until 1925, when it was removed along with the Commonwealth. After the proclamation of the Republic and the approval of the Statute there were attempts to create a geological Institute of Catalonia, but they were frustrated by the civil war and the dictatorship.

With these precedents, the SGC was created in 1979 to be used as a technician instrument in the field of geology and geotechnics that was allowing to obtain, in these areas, an adequate knowledge of the soil and subsoil for its application to public works and territorial policy, and assessment of geological risk and the development of the geological mapping. In 1982 it assumed the functions of the Seismology Survey of Catalonia, created in 1981 with the aim to pick up and evaluate microseismicity data in Catalonia, to specify seismic areas and to help the exploration future posibilities of the hydrological, mining and energetic resources ant to solve adequately engineering problems.

In a first stage, the SGC was created as an administrative service without legal personality, to exercise its duties, with a technical and specialized marked character, for the benefit of both the public and the private sectors, attributed to the DPTOP.

In 1997, the SGC joined the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia, but the high degree of expertise and the becaming importance that the geological, geophysical and geotechnical studies were reaching in the planning and execution of public works, infrastructures and territorial planning, made clear the necessitate to create a public entity, the Geological Institute of Catalonia (IGC), with its own legal status.

The main activities of the new IGC, created in 2005, focus primarily on the study, consulting, research and prevention of the soil and subsoil of Catalonia, covering its field of action, all branches of geology (mineralogy, petrology, stratigraphy, geomorphology, geochemistry, hydrogeology ...) and also the disciplines that are related too: soil sciences and pedology, geophysics, seismology, geological and geotechnical engineering.

The functions that the Institute exercises are, among many others: to elaborate the geological map of Catalonia, in various scales, and carry out mapping software, databases and information systems about soil and subsoil; to develop and maintain the seismic network; to study and assess the geological risks, including earthquake and avalanche risk; to develop and promote work, studies and evaluations in the field of geology and its related sciences; to advise and provide technical assistance in the field of geology and disciplines related to DPTOP, other departments and other administrations; to supervise, if requested, land geotechnical studies; to develop soil and subsoil studies; to establish protocols to be followed in the elaboration of geological, geophysical and geotechnical studies, and facilitate information gathered in the databases.

On January 30th 2014, it has been published the Law 2/2014, of creation of the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC) and suppression of the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya (ICC) and the Institut Geològic de Catalunya (IGC). This new institution becomes operational on February 1st 2014.

Their duties are related to the competences of geodesy and cartography and about the spatial data infrastructure of Catalonia, and also the competences of promoting and carrying out the actions related to the awareness, survey and information about the soil and subsoil, as regulated by the Law 16/2005, of December 27th, on geographic information and the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya, and by the Law 19/2005, of December 27th, on the Institut Geològic de Catalunya.