Onderzoeksproject IM/EC/24RBINS/CRM-ACT (Onderzoeksactie IM)
The aim of the project is to assume the role of national coordinator for reporting on the establishment of a national exploration program to the European Commission, as well as to develop and continuously update the national Critical Raw Material (CRM) database in accordance with CRM legislation guidelines.
The project can be divided into different tasks: The development and submission of a National Exploration Program for Belgium, adapting and developing the national CRM-database of the GSB according to the guidelines of the CRM legislation, gathering and evaluating of existing geological information and of the collections and executing of additional essential geochemical analysis.
It should be emphasized that this project is just a first step in developing and execution of the Belgium National Exploration Program including the development of a CRM-database.
During the project the GSB has taken up the role of national coordinator for the development and the reporting of a national Critical Raw Material exploration program to the European Commission and submitted the established Critical Raw Material National Exploration Program (CRM-NEP) to the responsible political levels. Within the developed CRM-NEP an overview of all necessary geoscientific exploration activities, including the development of CRM maps, models and databases are listed. These activities are defined conform the CRM act guidelines and are scientifically backboned with past research/knowledge on the subsurface of Belgium.
A new Belgian CRM database has been developed based on the architecture of the existing national INSPIRE-compliant m4eu database. This database has been populated with the data from the GSB’s CRM-Atlas database (+/- 300 points) as well as data from a recent study considering phosphate deposits in Belgium and Northern France (+/- 80 points). Preliminary maps have been made aiding with the interpretation of the data and as a starting point to update the CRM-Atlas of Belgium (published in 2024 by GSB), as foreseen in 2026.
Finally, more than 1.800 LIBS analyses are being conducted on Pb-Zn ores, which contain a range of critical raw material commodities. These analyses still need to be integrated in the new developed national CRM database.
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Operational Directorate Earth and History of Life, Geological Survey of Belgium (RBINS-CRM-Act) : final report
Meyvis, Bruno - Burlet, Christian -Decree, Sophie ... et al. Brussels : Belgian Science policy, 2025 (SP3667)
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