A modern state needs a geological survey

Geologist Peter Gatt has long been harping about the need for a national geological survey.

This would be a state entity responsible for studying the country’s lands and resources, providing reliable scientific data that would help protect lives and property, support energy and mineral decisions, promote economic growth and strengthen water infrastructure.

The NGS would monitor, analyse and predict changes to the country’s geology and earth systems. Among the more obvious jobs such an entity would be responsible for are updating Malta’s geological map and mapping out its vast continental shelf; evaluating coastal hazards resulting from unstable rocks and erosion; creating protocols that the construction industry can follow when carrying out excavation works.

Malta will not be inventing the wheel by creating a national geological survey. Indeed, other countries have such an entity and this is an integral part of there public policy decision-making processes.

At a time when climate change is causing bigger changes to natural and man-made habitats, requiring greater intervention to prevent loss of life and destruction to infrastructure, having such an all-encompassing entity is becoming a necessity. Similarly, at a time when the construction industry is getting even bolder with its projects—deeper excavations and high-rise towers—a national geological survey becomes a crucial cog to ensure safety for the community.

Gatt’s call so far has been ignored. The Malta Chamber of Geologists of which Gatt is president, has petitioned different administrations about its proposal, yet it keeps getting the cold shoulder. Part and parcel of the chamber’s proposal is the recognition of geologists as professionals.

In the last general election, the Nationalist Party had pledged to create a national geological survey and recognise geologists as a profession. But as far as government goes, there seems to be an unexplained resistance to have a dedicated geological entity. The resistance is confusing since a modern state so vulnerable to climate change would do well to have a single entity where valuable scientific resources are concentrated. It helps to have accurate and reliable data, which the authorities and other stakeholders, including the public, can use when making important decisions.

A fortnight ago, Gatt told MaltaToday that nobody is is monitoring the country’s unstable cliffs. His comment was in relation to the closure of part of the foreshore at St Peter’s Pool after bathers flagged a serious fissure in a rockface overlooking a rocky platform used by swimmers.

But Gatt warned that other popular bathing spots faced the same risk as St Peter’s Pool. He explained that much of Malta’s coastline is made up of fragile Globigerina limestone and clay, heavily fractured into blocks rather than solid rock, with fault lines especially vulnerable to the elements. During Storm Harry, Gatt noted, significant erosion of fault material was recorded at both Għar Lapsi and the Chalet in Sliema.

With severe storms predicted to increase, he warned that Malta faces a growing risk of massive coastal erosion that threatens critical infrastructure, a crisis the country remains largely unprepared for.

Gatt insisted that fractures like the one at St Peter’s Pool can be monitored effectively using specialised techniques and geological modelling. Geologists can predict the potential for rock failure and a national geological survey, he argued, would produce coastal hazard maps for the entire archipelago.

Barely had two weeks passed from those comments and Malta braced itself for a tragedy in Comino. A heavily-eroded natural rock arch collapsed onto a jet ski that was passing underneath, killing the driver and injuring his female companion who was riding pillion. The incident brought back memories of a similar tragedy in Marsaskala two years ago when a 22-year-old woman was killed by falling rocks at Munxar.

Gatt’s words may seem like a manifesto of doom and gloom. Recognising the dangers does carry with it the risk of creating doom but it also enables policy-makers to take pro-active action to prevent gloom.

When Gatt says that the absence of a geological survey is proof of systemic failure, he is right. The resistance to such an entity is incomprehensible and unacceptable.

We only hope that the Comino tragedy causes the authorities to rethink their stand and actively work to create a geological survey that is suitable for a modern European country.