A Guide To...Environmental Data Set Sources: Environmental Data Set Sources

Overview of Environment Related Data Sets

There are numerous data sets relating the environment available via the Internet at no cost. This guide is by no means a comprehensive collection of data sets, but merely a starting point to find resources.

Many of these are from the federal, state and local governments, or associations and organizations dedicated to a specific topic. Always consider the source when using data-- if it a special interest group, keep in the mind the data could be collected and presented in a way that best expresses the interests of that organization.Some tips for assessing a web site are located under the Tips for Using Internet Sources .

This libguide has several tabs with data sets listed under each tab. Some examples of the data sets included in this guide are the following:

• The Access Initiative (TAI) (General)- Information regarding the environmental, social, and economic trends that shape our world. The Access Initiative offers the public a large breadth of statistical, graphic, and analytical data in easily accessible formats.
• Global Change Master Directory http://gcmd.nasa.gov (General)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Goddard Space Flight Center. /Earth science data sets and services relevant to the global change and earth science research - more than 15,000 descriptions of Earth science data sets and services covering all aspects of Earth and environmental sciences, including agriculture.
• TOXMAP - (General) on-site toxic releases and hazardous waste sites from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). TOXMAP data is provided by several sources, all of which are listed with links to their web sites. Saving TOXMAP data.
• U.S. Census Bureau - American FactFinder - (General) provides data on population, housing and economy and geography of the U.S.
• World Bank Environment - (General) Data covers forests, biodiversity, emissions, and pollution.
• USDA Economic Research Service - (Agriculture)  United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) Data Sets on natural resources and the environment as it pertains to food, farming and natural resources in the areas of soil conservation, water quality and management, cropping practices, invasive species, pest management, and land use at the state and federal level.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration - (Agricluture) Home page provides links to recent environmentally related issues that affect workers. See Data & Statistics tab for additional worker related data sets.
• Agricultural Marketing Resource Center - (Agriculture) provides access to data sets on renewable energy supply usage & analysis, profitability, and prices.
• Census of Agriculture  by the National Agriculture Statistics Service - (Agriculture) Census of Agriculture is the leading source of facts and figures about American agriculture. Conducted every five years (most recent being 2007), the Census provides a detailed picture of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Data is available for multiple census years.
  
• Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center - (Energy) provides data, analysis and trends related specifically to biomass resources.
• DALLAS PUBLIC LIBRARY (Energy)
• Dallas Public Library - Nancy and Jake L. Harmon Oil and Gas Resource Center
  http://dallaslibrary.org/business/hamon/hamon.htm
• ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION – (Energy) US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, first place to start looking for historical and current prices for petroleum, natural gas, refined products and coal

• MassDEP Air Monitoring Reports, Plans and Studies.   Massachusetts Deparment of Environmental Protection - Annual plans for the MassDEP statewide air monitoring network and summaries of the air quality data it has collected.

• Drinking Water Quality in Massachusetts - (Land) drinking water contaminant data provided by Massachusetts Department of Public Health - Bureau of Environmental Health for lead, arsenic, nitrates and disinfection byproducts. Click on the contaminant name and scroll to the bottom of the relevant page to find data sets.
• EPA STORET Water Quality Data Warehouse - (Land) The STORET Data Warehouse is EPA's repository of the water quality monitoring data collected by water resource management groups across the country.
• NOAA Climate Services - (Land) NOAH Climate Services Data & Services for Past & Present Climate, Predictions, NOAA Partners, Climate & You, and Data Libary. Data sets exist under each of the tabs named in the previous sentence.
• National Snow and Ice Data Center  - NSIDC offers hundreds of scientific data sets for research, focusing on the cryosphere and its interactions. Data are from satellites and field observations. All data are free of charge.
• Remote Sensing Systems - world leader in processing and analyzing microwave data collected by satellite microwave sensors.

Citing a Data Set

It is important to cite data sets for several reasons, primarily, to give credit to the collector and compiler of the information and to provide the origin of the data set so that the reader or user of your data can readily find the source information used for your presentation.Citing data sets can vary, depending upon the citation style used and the criteria required by a publisher or data source. Many of the specific style manuals and web sites don't clearly address data sets, although most provide information on citing web sites. The important thing to remember is to provide as much information as possible to clearly identify the source of your data.Some helpful information can be found at:

•  AMSR-E  - Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) instructions for citing data.
• National Snow and Ice Data Center Citing Guide - instructions for citing data sets by the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
• MSU Citing a Data Set - Michigan State University instructions for citing data sets.
• NCSU Citing a Data Set - North Carolina State University instructions for citing data sets.