About this demo
A proof of concept by Datopian showing what the North Sea Transition Authority’s open data could look like on PortalJS, with ArcGIS staying the source.
What this is
The NSTA publishes its open data on an ArcGIS Hub: licences, wells, fields, pipelines and other infrastructure, seismic surveys, licensing rounds, geology and carbon storage, plus printable maps, data releases and interactive apps. Most layers appear there several times, once per coordinate system (WGS84, ED50, ETRS89, British National Grid). This demo folds those 350 Hub items into 167 layers (472,464 features), served in WGS84, and lists 115 documents and 18 apps alongside them. It is not an official NSTA website and the NSTA has not reviewed it.
What it adds
One search across everything
Search names, descriptions and keywords across all 167 data layers plus the NSTA's reports, maps and apps, filter by theme or type, and go straight to the data.
Maps that load instantly
Every layer is pre-cut into vector tiles, so even the 136,000 production report points or the seismic survey lines draw only what is in view. Combine any layers on one map.
Queries in the browser
Filter, chart or write SQL against any layer. It runs in your browser on open file formats (GeoParquet), with no database to run.
How it works
Every layer was read from the NSTA’s public ArcGIS services and converted into open formats: PMTiles for maps, GeoParquet for queries, CSV for spreadsheets, and GeoJSON for download where the file is under 5 MB (larger layers download as CSV or GeoParquet). Feature counts match the source services. Where the preferred WGS84 service was broken, the same layer was read from its ED50 or ETRS89 copy. Seismic survey lines were simplified to about 20 m to keep them light; their live ArcGIS layers keep full detail. Documents and apps are listed and link to the NSTA’s own files. A scheduled job can re-read ArcGIS to keep the site current; each dataset page links back to its live ArcGIS service.
The data is the NSTA’s, used under the NSTA User Agreement: contains information provided by the North Sea Transition Authority and/or other third parties.
Questions or feedback?
This demo was built by Datopian, a core contributor to CKAN and the team behind PortalJS. Write to us at hello@datopian.com. For questions about the data itself, see the NSTA’s data contacts.