One of the objectives of the National Biodiversity Data Centre is to serve as a national repository for biological data, and make good quality and reliable data on Ireland’s biological diversity freely and universally available via the Internet. The National Biodiversity Data Centre’s state-of-the-art mapping system Biodiversity Maps is a web portal to biodiversity data and information. This system serves as a national platform for data management and presentation, and makes high quality data available to recorders, researchers and decision makers.

The availability of data in this format facilitates the interrogation of data from different datasets and across taxonomic groups. As the system develops it will provide quantitative data to identify the areas of greatest biological diversity at the national, regional and local level and enable a range of other spatial analyses to be undertaken. This will provide an invaluable tool for spatial planning and conservation management in years to come.

The current number of biological records being held by the National Biodiversity Data Centre can be found here: https://maps.biodiversityireland.ie/