Historic Environment Division Lidar 2008: Northern Ireland Archaeological Surveys

Approximately 130 square kilometers of Northern Ireland were surveyed using airborne LIDAR in 2008 to assist with archaeological interpretation. The data, provided as digital surface or terrain models, was collected by the Historic Environment Division over a six-year period starting in 2008. Laser pulses measured ground distance 100,000 times per second with a vertical accuracy of 0.5 centimeters.

Use Cases

• Identify subtle archaeological features based on high-resolution topographic models.
• Create digital terrain models for landscape analysis based on ground-return LIDAR data.
• Map archaeological site coverage across 39 surveyed locations in Northern Ireland.
• Analyze landscape change over time based on the 2008 survey baseline.

Strengths

• Covers approximately 130 square kilometers across 39 distinct sites.
• Provides high vertical accuracy of 0.5 centimeters for detailed topographic modeling.
• Data is available under an Open Government Licence for broad reuse.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The data is provided 'as is' and is not supported by the publisher.

Provenance

Source

Historic Environment Division (HED) via OpenDataNI.

Collection Method

Airborne LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) surveys.

Time Range

2008

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:55.059393; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Ireland