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A Guide To...Environmental Data Set Sources: Land, Water, Air, Plants and Animals

Resources for data sets relating to the environment.

Land, Water, Air, Plants and Animals

  • Astronomical Applications -provides Data Services for Sun and Moon rise and set times, Moon phases, eclipses, seasons, positions of solar system objects, and other data and the Astronomical Information Center provides background information on common astronomical phenomena, calendars and time, and related topics.
  • Drinking Water Quality in Massachusetts - 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.
  • Earth Orientation - determining and predicting the time-varying alignment of the Earth's terrestrial reference frame with respect to the celestial reference frame.
  • The Access Initiative - Information regarding the environmental, social, and economic trends that shape our world. Offers the public a large breadth of statistical, graphic, and analytical data in easily accessible formats. Registration required for access to some tables, but it is free.
  • EPA STORET Water Quality Data Warehouse - The STORET Data Warehouse is EPA's repository of the water quality monitoring data collected by water resource management groups across the country.
  • Geographic Names Information System - Contains information about 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. Produced by the U.S. Geological Survey. Geospatial Data Gateway - USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service GDG provides environmental and natural resources data, at anytime, from anywhere, to anyone. The Gateway allows you to choose your area of interest, browse and select data from our catalog, customize the format, and have it downloaded or shipped on CD or DVD. 
  • Movebank - Movebank is a free, online database of animal tracking data hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. We help animal tracking researchers to manage, share, protect, analyze, and archive their data. Movebank Data Respository is located at: https://www.movebank.org/node/15294
  • National Center for Geographical Information & Analysis (NCGIA) - The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis is an independent research consortium dedicated to basic research and education in geographic information science and its related technologies, including geographic information systems (GIS). 
  • National Snow and Ice Data Center - Easy to use data products - provide information in formats that require little or no processing or programming. These may be of particular interest to teachers, students, press, the general public, or non-cryospheric researchers.
  • NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration - Facts, figures, imagery & reports on the weather, climate, oceanography, marine fisheries, and satellite monitoring systems.
  • National Water Quality Moitoring Council - Water Quality Portal The Water Quality Portal (WQP) is a cooperative service sponsored by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Environmental Portection Agency (EPA), and the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC). It serves data collected by over 400 state, federal, tribal, and local agencies. 
  • Plants Database - Provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the US and its territories. It includes names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, species abstracts, characteristics, images, plant links, references, crop information, and automated tools. 
  • The Polaris Project: The Polaris Project tackles one of humanity’s greatest challenges – global climate change – in one of Earth’s most remote and vulnerable environments: the Arctic. http://www.thepolarisproject.org/data/ Data resides at NSF Arctic Data Center Website: https://arcticdata.io/catalog/data
  • United Nations Atlas of the Oceans - An Internet portal designed to provide policy-makers, scientists, students, and resource managers with “information relevant to the sustainable development of the oceans.” Developed under the authority of UN-Oceans.
  • United States Geological Survey (USGS) Data Catalog - The USGS Science Data Catalog provides seamless access to USGS research and monitoring data from across the nation. Users have the ability to search, browse, or use a map-based interface to discover data.
  • United States Geological Survey (USGS) Water Sources - What's happening with water in the U.S. today, in the past and in the future. Provides data sets on streamflow, flooding, drought, ground water levels, water quality, and sediment. Information is available by state and by individual bodies of water.
  • United States Global Change Research Program - provides climate change impacts by sector: water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystem, human health and society.
  • United States Naval Observatory Naval Oceanographic Portal - provides a wide range of astronomical data and products, and serves as the official source of time for the U.S. Department of Defense and a standard of time for the entire United States