Exemples of data accessible on-line

Last update: 23 Jan 2008.Add the best for your subject: mail to bkest@ulb.ac.be

Those are just exemples to show how it is possible to select and obtain data on-line. The site is mainly focused on sustainable development related data, and shows several tools for presenting or retrieving data.



African data:

Africa data Dissemination Service (USGS/EROS) provides access to African data, searchable by date or country (mainly satellite imagery or related) and with previews.

Air:

USA air pollution data provides access to diverse databases and metadatabases on air quality (by point station, by area, pollutant etc.), mainly but not only in USA.

American data:

US EROS Data Center of US Geological Survey provides access to a lot of databases, images, digital maps and metadatabases related to earth observation, geology, topography (digital elevation model of the world) etc.

Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, ...):

Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, ...), data by UNEP and countries.

Arctic geographical data sets:

GRID-Arendal provides access to geographic environmental datasets and maps (in ARC/INFO, GIF or TIFF formats).

Asian population:

GRID-Sioux Falls, Arc/Info or GRIDASCII files.

Baltic sea maps:

GRID-Arendal offers various environmental maps.

Belgium:


Flanders (nl),metadatabase.
Wallonie (fr) Air emissions (CO2, NOx, SO2), criminality, bathing water, metal ressources

Biogeochemical dynamics data for terrestrial ecosystems:

ORNL offers various data related to global change, including CO2, vegetation etc.

Biodiversity:


Belgium, encyclopedy in French, covering mainly Wallonian Region and Belgium, but also Europe (CORINE), with dynamic maps and access to data (species distributions, sites, protection status and legislation).

Biological images:

Biological images archive offers various pictures of plants, etc, in jpeg format..

Climatic data:

GRID-Sioux Falls provides long term climatic averages and general climatic life zones in Generic raster format.

Consummers (Europe):

EC-DGXXIV, full reports and data, and links to directories and other sites. The full Eurobarometer can be found there (opinion and behaviour of the public), with subjects like environment etc.

Conventions on nature and landscape conservation (Europe):

Conventions on nature (Europe), all.the texts available on-line.

Convention on biological diversity:

National reports, countries.

Country profiles:

  • Country reports (global change, Kyoto), full country reports with detailed data on emissions of greenhouse gases.
  • Country profiles, Country profiles, indicators, data, maps.

    Demographic data viewer:

    All USA, all demography in detail, for 25 variables (needs images).

    Digital Chart of the World (DCW)

    Digital Chart of the World (DCW), all best www sources to get software and example maps in GIS formats!

    Earth observation

  • Earth observation, tropospheric air emissions, maps, SO2, NO2, ozone, aerosol, UV, Bromine monoxide (BrO), ozone column, Near-real time data, satellite images. Diverse earth observation data and products based on satellite imagery, e.g. maps of anthropogenic and natural air emissions, in near real time, detailed in time and space.

    Europe

    Data, Land cover, Biotopes, nationnally designated areas, biogeographic regions, European rivers and catchments, soil erosion risk, land quality.

    French data

  • France (data) (fr)

    European data:

    Products of European Environment Agency and EC-DGXI : CORINE air emissions (summary by country) and several report summaries. The contact points to receive complete CORINE databases (Biotopes, Land Cover, Soil & vegetation maps, CORINAIR, or other free reports are also available from there. Several directories exist there (CORINE data dictionary, inventory of Main Component Elements of EIONET) but are not yet accessible on-line... hopefully soon!

    Geographical data

    ESRI provides a catalogue of data used by, or produced with Geographical Information System (Arc/Info software). The data are sorted by publisher, type (geographic data, business data, natural resources and environmental data, general reference data), or keywords.

    Human body:

    Visible human viewer (needs Java compatible browser) is here as an example of what is possible with Java. You can zoom in on various sections of the body and perform your own autopsy on a cadaver...

    Human development indicators:

  • Human development indicators. A portal to all available data per country. A very efficient tool for indicator building.

    Human genome:

    A gene map of the human genome, encyclopedia on 16000 known genes, by chromosome.

    Legislation (Europe):

    Legislation,encyclopedia. Full textes of current and foreseen legislation

    Nordic data:

    GRID-Arendal provides on-line access to geographic environmental datasets and maps.

    Northern America:

    GRID-Sioux Falls provides on-line access to geographic environmental or sociological datasets and maps: Asian and general population, climate, soil, topography, vegetation of the world or Northern America.

    Norway:

    GRID-Arendal ,provides on-line data, maps and reports on Norway.

    Occurrence and Distribution of Pesticides in Chesapeake Bay:

    Data Base of the Occurrence and Distribution of Pesticides in Chesapeake Bay, the data, in a searchable format, are on the Web as a good example of how libraries and scientists can cooperatively deliver information in an electronic environment.

    Ocean topography:

    Perspectives on an Ocean Planet, a CD-rom of more than an hour of digital video, audio, images, and text which describe the impetus for the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission as well as scientific results obtained in the first three years. This mission measures the global ocean topography every 10 days

    Ozone maps (Europe):

  • Ozone maps (Europe), data. Up to date maps for ozone situation in Europe.

    Population:

    GRID-Sioux Falls provides global population distribution in dBase IV format.

    Real time satellite images:

    Real time satellite images ,provides links to various real time satellite images (mainly infrared) from the meteorological institutes: USA, Europe, Africa. Images updated every 3 hours. Thumbnails images are provided on the starting page.

    References on Global Change:

    With many references to originals. Agriculture. Human Health. Political Institutions.

    Santa Cruz Toxic Release Inventory:

    Santa Cruz Toxic Release Inventory in a beautiful exemple of encyclopedia on-line.You can browse the complete database by various means including a clikable map of your region of interest. You get the results in various display formats and can click more to view the details or to access the data.

    Satellite imagery (Belgium):

    EduSpot ,provides on-line description and access to sattelite (Spot) imagery of Belgium, for educational purposes.

    Satellite imagery:

    Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change,provides on-line description and access to sattelite (Spot) imagery of every parts of the world. Mainly focused on forests, water bodies, deserts and disasters (man-made and natural) for the last 20 years.

    Soil:

    GRID-Sioux Falls, global or brasilian soil maps in Arc/Info raster or Export, or Generic Raster formats.

    State of the environment reports:



    Statistics:



    Sustainable development reports:

  • Sustainable development reports. A portal to all available sustainable development reports by companies. Environmental reports are also recorded.

    Technology:

    GNET, an encyclopedy of environmental technologies, with description and hyperlinks.

    News are also collected there.

    Thesaurus (multilingual):

    INFOTERRA multilingual thesaurus. The best available environmental multilingual thesaurus on the net (en, fr, es, ru, ...).

    Topographic data:

    GRID-Sioux Falls provides global elevation (5-10 min), global wetlands, surface crustal temp in Generic raster format.

    Toxic substances:

    Toxic substances , is a relational database with US contaminated sites, substances found, toxicology profiles and health effects.

    Toxic substances:

    Trade of endangered species, CITES, data. Database on international legal trade of endangered species (CITES).

    Tropospheric air emissions:

  • Tropospheric air emissions, maps, SO2, NO2, ozone, aerosol, UV, Bromine monoxide (BrO), ozone column, Near-real time data, satellite images, data Maps of anthropogenic and natural air emissions, in near real time, detailed in time and space.

    UNEP directory:

    GRID-Arendal, a directory of all available data from UNEP and partners.

    Vegetation:

    GRID-Sioux Falls, global or Brasilian vegetation in Arc/Info Export or Generic Raster formats.

    USA:

    EPA data , various database are searchable there (but sometime, it is necessary to be registered before). (see also US GS at American data above).

    Virtual experiments

    Virtual Flylab allows you to reproduce genetical or geological experiments and to analyse the results. For fun or education.

    Weather maps in real time (USA):

    Weather Visualizer allows you to customize the maps you want to see. Very impressing!

    Weather data an index to various real time or archive images and data related to weather.

    World data and maps:

    Geodata

    The GEO Data Portal is the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments. Its online database holds more than 400 different variables, as national, subregional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them on-the-fly as maps, graphs, raw values or download the data in different formats.

    Inktome gets mainly full documents as results (good for bibliography):

    for words:

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    For any comments or additions, please do not hesitate to contact me:

    Author: Bruno Kestemont (bkest@ulb.ac.be) of CESSE, under financing of the Belgian Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs