Environment
Environmental Databases
Copernicus Land Monitoring Service
Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation programme that draws from satellite and in-situ (non-space) data.
Information from this programme is provided through six thematic services: land, marine, atmosphere, climate change, emergency management and security.
All information is free and openly accessible to all users.
The Land Monitoring Service provides access to bio-geophysical products, land cover and land use, environmental hotspots, and satellite imagery.
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs make environmental data (e.g., LIDAR, photography, bathymetry, multispectral) openly available to a wide range of users available for download in commonly used formats.
Click "Surveys" in the menu at the top to open a web-based mapping interface
A public domain map dataset featuring vector and raster data.
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (sedac)
One of the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) in the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) that focuses on human interactions in the environment.
Requires an EARTHDATA account.
Registration is free.
Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
To provide quantitative metrics for evaluating a country's environmental performance in different policy categories relative to clearly defined targets.
Provides interactive tools that allow users to discover, analyze, and download data and maps related to ecosystem services, or the benefits people receive from nature.
The Geospatial Data Gateway (GDG) provides access to a map library of over 100 high resolution vector and raster layers in the Geospatial Data Warehouse. It is the One Stop Source for environmental and natural resources data, at any time, from anywhere, to anyone. It allows you to choose your area of interest, browse and select data, customize the format, then review and download.
Access expert knowledge about the Chesapeake Bay and its ecosystem through publications, reports, and datasets from the Chesapeake Bay Program and our partners. Our data hub offers access to a multitude of monitoring and modeling data, past and present.
Elevation
Harmonized World Soil Database v 1.2
Global elevation, slope, and aspect data in 5 min and 30 arc second resolutions.
Global 12, 30, and 90 m digital elevation models.
OpenTopography aims to democratize access to high-resolution topographic data in a manner that serves users with varied expertise, application domains, and computing resources.
Derek Watkins's interactive map for easily downloading Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) thirty meter (30 m) resolution elevation tiles from NASA servers.
Earth Features
Provides updated hydrography (surface water such as streams, rivers and watershed areas) data that meet statewide and national standards.
Public data catalog that includes a variety of standard Earth science raster datasets.
Access thousands of unique data products in NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) collection from a variety of sources including the International Space Station, satellites, airborne campaigns, field campaigns, in-situ instruments, and model outputs.
An online search, discovery, and ordering tool developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that supports the searching of satellite, aircraft, and other remote sensing inventories through interactive and textual-based queries.
An online search, discovery, and ordering tool developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that supports the searching of satellite, aircraft, and other remote sensing inventories through interactive and textual-based queries.
The NGA Office of Global Navigation, Maritime Domain is in the process of developing a new version of World Vector Shoreline (WVS) and in support of this effort has acquired a satellite-derived Global Shoreline Data set.
This new Global Shoreline Data (GSD) set is an approximation of the High Water Line; it is NOT a Mean High Water Line.
Continuous shoreline data, approximately between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south, are being made available.
The original World Vector Shoreline (WVS) was a digital data file containing the shorelines, international boundaries, and country names of the world.
WVS data were processed into the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Vector Product Format in 1995, resulting in the highest resolution demarcation of coastline globally available, the World Vector Shoreline Plus (now a pay-for service).
A free and easy-to-use interface is available for the Global Shoreline Dataset (GSD) at the NGA's website: https://dnc.nga.mil/PrototypeGSD.php.
Seamless access to ocean data
Soil
Soil data for the US and its territories.
Soil and terrain maps for South America, Africa (parts), Europe (parts), and Asia (parts) from 1986 to 2016.
Weather
Find past weather and climate data provided by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCDC).
International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS)
Tropical cyclone (TC) best track data already exist as individual storm tracks at other agencies and IBTrACS merges these data sets into a worldwide TC database available in netCDF, CSV, and shapefile formats.
A gathering of climate observations from a wide range of monitoring networks available at multiple spatial/temporal resolutions, covering the period from 1895 to the present.
A gathering of climate observations from a wide range of monitoring networks available at multiple spatial/temporal resolutions, covering the period from 1895 to the present.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides an open access interactive Sea Level Rise Viewer that shows you what currently dry land could be under water with different sea level rise scenarios along with their confidence value.
Plants and Animals
Provides interactive maps, satellite imagery and related spatial databases for sustainable development and decision making in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food security.
Global Dataset of Historic Yield
Offers annual time series data of 0.5-degree grid-cell yield estimates of major crops worldwide for the period 1981-2016.
Sometimes referred to as the "Hansen Data," the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory at the University of Maryland, in partnership with Global Forest Watch (GFW), provides annually updated global-scale forest loss data, derived using Landsat time-series imagery.
This global dataset is divided into 10x10 degree tiles, consisting of seven files per tile.
All files contain unsigned 8-bit values and have a spatial resolution of 1 arc-second per pixel, or approximately 30 meters per pixel at the equator.
Committed to providing the highest-quality data on the world's forests.
Includes links to the Hansen datasets.
National Land Cover Database (NLDC)
Provides spatial reference and descriptive data for characteristics of the land surface such as thematic class (for example, urban, agriculture, and forest), percent impervious surface, and percent tree canopy cover.
A time-stamped semi-geolocated incident log of global shark attacks. See also Sharks.org for a hosted Google sheet version of the global shark attack file (notice that their archive may not be up-to-date).
Free and open access to biodiversity data
Center for Conservation Biology Mapping Portal
The Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) is is a research group within The College of William and Mary and the Virginia Commonwealth University that consists of professionals, students, and citizens who are dedicated to the common vision that the natural environment is an important part of our quality of life.
The Mapping Portal is a complimentary service to the conservation community centered around birds (e.g., bald eagles and ospreys) within the Chesapeake Bay area.
A Global Information System for Coral Reefs.
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) creates and maintains a variety of spatial data. The table on the website lists datasets available via download with links to metadata
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
GIS boundaries for conservation lands are acquired in digital form when available, from state and federal land management agencies and localities. DCR State Park and State Natural Area Preserve boundaries were created in-house from best available sources, including digital surveys.
You are invited to use the Phenology Observation Portal to download customized datasets of observational data from the National Phenology Database, which includes phenology data collected via the Nature's Notebook phenology program (2009-present for the United States), and additional integrated datasets, such as historical lilac and honeysuckle data (1955-present). Filters are available to specify dates, regions, species and phenophases of interest.