Geospatial Data at Academic Data Centre
The Academic Data Centre provides support and resources for a variety of geospatial data to suit the teaching and research needs of faculty, staff and students. This guide describes some of the available geospatial datasets and how they can be accessed.Where can you access geospatial data?
There are four main access points to geospatial data available through ADC:- Scholars GeoPortal
- ADC Geospatial Data Explorer
- Online Open Data Portals
- Contact Us
1. Scholars GeoPortal
Scholars GeoPortal is an online data portal from the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) that offers search, discovery, visualize, and access to a variety of open and restricted (licensed) geospatial datasets covering Ontario and Canada. The geospatial data available from the portal can be downloaded and imported into GIS software for mapping and analysis purposes. Open datasets are accessible by all, while restricted datasets are available to students, faculty, and staff at Ontario universities (including UWindsor) for teaching and research purposes (non-commercial use only). You’ll have to login for off-campus access to restricted data using your UWindsor account.
See the Getting Started with Scholars GeoPortal video for an introduction, and the GeoPortal User Guide for detailed instruction for using the portal.
Note: Most geospatial datasets available from the Academic Data Centre can be accessed and downloaded directly using Scholars GeoPortal.
2. Academic Data Centre Geospatial Data Holdings
Some datasets restricted to University of Windsor affiliates are not available online. For these datasets, which includes data from the City of Windsor, Teranet parcel boundaries, and imagery, try searching the ADC Geospatial Data Holdings.3. Open Data Portal
Additional datasets can be found online through various data portals, some of which are listed below. Many of these portals, particularly those of municipal, provincial, and federal governments, are making their data available under open data licenses.- Local/Regional
City and County Data
- City of Windsor Open Data Catalogue: https://opendata.citywindsor.ca/
- Essex County Open Data: https://opendata.countyofessex.ca/
- Essex Region Conservation Authority Interactive Mapping: http://ercamaps.countyofessex.ca/
- City of London Open Data: https://opendata.london.ca/
- City of Brampton GeoHub: https://geohub.brampton.ca/
- City of Burlington Open Data: https://navburl-burlington.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/data
- Conservation Halton Open Data Hub: https://conservationhalton-camaps.opendata.arcgis.com/
- City of Hamilton Open Data: https://open.hamilton.ca/
- City of Mississauga Open Data Catalogue: https://data.mississauga.ca/
- Niagara Open Data: https://niagaraopendata.ca/
- Open Ottawa: https://open.ottawa.ca/
- City of Waterloo Open Data: https://data.waterloo.ca/?_ga=2.227347359.380861690.1626726446-1788751335.1626726446
- Region of Waterloo Open Data: https://rowopendata-rmw.opendata.arcgis.com/
- City of Toronto Open Data Portal: https://open.toronto.ca/
- York Region Open Data: https://insights-york.opendata.arcgis.com/
- Region of Peel Data Portal: https://data.peelregion.ca/
- Grand River Information Network: https://data.grandriver.ca/
- Ontario
Data Portal
- Ontario Government Open Data Catalogue: online data portal for the Ontario government's open data
- Ontario GeoHub: the authoritative source for Ontario's geospatial data.
- GeologyOntario - an online warehouse that contains all of the publically available digital data collected by the Mines and Minerals division. GeologyOntario data can be viewed and visually explored or searched through OGSEarth.
- Great Lakes Hydrography Dataset (GLHD): a comprehensive spatial framework, database, and classification for Great Lakes ecological data.
- Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN): provides a wide range of geospatial data for the Great Lakes region.
- NOAA - Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory: includes data that covers physical properties, hydrology, hydraulics, meteorology, ice and snow data, biological aspects, chemical and sediments data, waves and circulation data, and lake levels.
- Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework: a comprehensive spatial framework, database, and classification for Great Lakes ecological data.
- Ontario Climate Change Data Portal
- Petroleum Well Data - Ontario: Data related to petroleum wells.
- CAMaps.ca: an interactive map portal to several Ontario's conservation authority homepages and mapping sites.
Web Application
- AgMaps - by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs: provides mapping tools to build customized maps on assessment parcels, farm property tax parcels, Canada Land Inventory classes, soils, drainage and aerial imagery.
- Watershed flow assessment tool: allows users to creates watersheds, calculates watershed characteristics, executes hydrology models and reports water flow statistics.
- COSINE Retrieval (COSINE): view geodetic control monument locations in Ontario
- Make a Map: Natural Heritage Areas: allows users to make a custom map of the various natural heritage areas in Ontario such as wetlands, woodlands, provincial parks etc.
- Forest Fire Info Map: provides a list of current fires in Ontario.
- Other Provinces/Territories
Alberta
- Alberta Open Data Portals: provides a list of Open Government Data Portals in the Province of Alberta.
- AltaLIS: access to various GIS data on property, base maps, terrain, imagery and infrastructure for the province of Alberta.
- Alberta Open Government Portal: access to a collection of datasets by the Alberta's government departments and agencies.
- GeoDiscover Alberta: view and download the Alberta's government geospatial data.
- Open Data Areas Alberta (ODAA): provides various GIS data for Beaver Hills, Fort McMurray, Fox Creek, RMH Sylvan, Taber, Utikuma Lake.
- Alberta Climate Information Service (ACIS): provides maps and weather data describe Alberta's weather, climate and related agriculture features.
- Alberta Geological Survey Open Data Portal: provides a large number of GIS data related to the geology of the province of Alberta.
- Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) Data and Analytics Portal: provides access to ABMI's data for species and habitat, landcover, human footprint, imagery.
- Alberta Municipal Data Sharing Partnership: register to download municipal data for the betterment of emergency, public and private industry applications throughout the Province of Alberta.
- Open Calgary: the City of Calgary’s open data portal
- Edmonton Open Data Portal: the City of Edmonton’s open data portal
British Columbia
- BC Data Catalogue: online data portal for access to B.C. Government data, applications and web services.
- BC Geographic data and services: provide a wide range of B.C. Government geospatial services, such as iMap and HectaresBC, and location services such as BC Physical Address Geocoder, Geographical Names Web Service, and Route Planner.
- GeoBC: provides a diverse roster of tools and applications that can be used to discover, view and manipulate spatial information in British Columbia.
- Provincial Agricultural Land Commission: the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) boundaries for the province.
- BC Soil Information Finder Tool: provides access to soil survey data, reports and maps.
- BC Marine Conservation Analysis: browse and download ecological and human use maps and data for the Canadian Pacific.
- BC Economic Atlas: a user friendly, web-based mapping application that integrates and displays economic and natural resource data on a map to support investment opportunity identification, business case analysis and decision-making in British Columbia. Data can be downloaded from the Metadata URL section.
- Community Mapping Network (CMN): a wealth of community based atlases for sensitive habitats and species distributions in British Columbia and Canada.
- City of Kamloops Open Data Catalogue
- City of Kelowna Open Data
- City of Vancouver Open Data Portal
- City of Victoria Open Data Portal
Manitoba
- Manitoba Land Initiative Digital Maps and Data: access to various geospatial information from the Government of Manitoba.
- Data MB: Manitoba's public platform for exploring, visualizing, and downloading geospatial open data.
- Manitoba Geoscience: provides maps and downloadable geophysical datasets on the geology, geophysics, geochronology and mineral occurrences for Manitoba.
- The Lake Winnipeg Basin Information Network (LWBIN) Data Hub: The Lake Winnipeg Basin geography spans across four Canadian Provinces and four American States. It provides a central open access point for data and data products about the shifting dynamics impacting the basin.
- City of Winnipeg Open Data Portal
New Brunswick
- GeoNB: the Province of New Brunswick’s gateway to geographic information and related value-added applications.
- Open Data New Brunswick
- City of Fredericton Open Data
- City of Moncton Open Data
- City of Saint John Open Data
Newfoundland and Labrador
- GeoScience Atlas
- Newfoundland and Labrador Open Data
- Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture (FFA) GIS & Mapping: provides various GIS data sets designed for renewable resources including Agriculture, Forestry, Wildlife, Fisheries, Aquaculture, Crown Lands and Land Management.
- Department of Environment and Climate Change Maps & GIS: provides a range of data including water quality, flood risk and more.
- Department of Industry, Energy and Technology Petroleum Development Section Onshore Maps & Data and Offshore Maps & Data: disseminate digital onshore/offshore petroleum exploration and development data.
- Community Infrastructure Mapping System: combines Google's mapping library and infrastructure with a comprehensive database of different kinds of community infrastructure.
Northwest Territories
- Northwest Territories Centre for Geomatics: provide various geospatial data, web applications for NWT.
- NWT Discovery Portal: allows users to access data, metadata and reports for environmental monitoring knowledge in the Northwest Territories.
- Northwest Territories Geological Survey (NTGS): online application to search, display and download NTGS publications, mineral showings, mineral exploration assessment reports, petroleum industry reports and other data.
- ATLAS (Administration of the Territorial Land Acts System): allows users to browse and download parcel mapping information and real-time tenure data maintained by Lands Administration, Department of Lands.
- City of Yellowknife Open Data Portal
Nova Scotia
- GeoNOVA: Province of Nova Scotia's gateway to geographic information about Nova Scotia.
- Nova Scotia Open Data Portal
- Nova Scotia Elevation Data Explorer: access free LiDAR point data and raster DEMs
- Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry Forestry Branch
- Nova Scotia Department of Energy and Mines Geoscience & Mines Branch
- DatazOne: access property and municipal datasets from across Nova Scotia.
- Historical Maps of Nova Scotia: contains hundreds of digitized historical maps of Nova Scotia
- Halifax Open Data
Prince Edward Island
Québec
- Government of Québec Open Data
- Department of Energy and Natural Resources Geoscience Database
- City of Montreal Open Data Portal
- Québec City Open Data Portal
Saskatchewan
- Saskatchewan GeoHub: GIS data and maps from the Government of Saskatchewan.
- Saskatchewan Geological Survey
- City of Regina Open Data
- City of Saskatoon Open Data Portal
Yukon
- GeoYukon: Users can search, display and download the government’s spatial data.
- Government of Yukon open data
- Canada
- Government of Canada Open Data Portal: A central location for data from Canadian Government Departments as well as links to Provincial and Municipal open government geospatial sites.
- Open Maps: provides access to the Government of Canada’s geospatial information.
- Geography Network: ESRI Canada's portal for finding and sharing Canadian geographic content, including maps and data from many of the country’s leading providers.
- National Forest Database: provides various information on the forest resources of Canada including forest inventory, wood supply, forest fires and forest insects etc.
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada Interactive Maps: provides access to several maps and data regarding the ocean and fishes resources of Canada
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
- CanSIS (Canadian Soil Information System): provides access to soil and land resource information for Canada, including National Soil Database that contain soil, landscape, and climatic data for all of Canada.
Environment and Climate Change Canada
- Historical Climate Data: access historical weather, climate data, and related information for numerous locations across Canada.
- Canadian Centre for Climate Services Climate Data: access data that help understand climate change.
- Canadian Wind Energy Atlas: contains colour maps representing the average wind velocity and power for the whole country, and corresponding geophysical characteristics as well as downloadable data files that were obtained from the simulations on the Canadian territory.
Natural Resources Canada
- Topographic Information: access topographic maps, data, applications and tools produced by NRC. You can also use this Download Directory and Documentation page to access data.
- Canadian Geographic Names: provides a number of products and services related to geographical names.
- Earth Sciences Tools and Applications: access to scientific publications of the Earth Sciences Sector (ESS) of Natural Resources Canada. A series of maps and geospatial data are available for download.
- Canadian National Seismographic Network: Canadian earthquake data.
- Water Survey of Canada:provides various historical and real-time hydrometric data for Canada.
- GEOSCAN: bibliographic database for scientific publications of Natural Resources Canada including records primarily of the Earth Sciences (Geological Survey of Canada publications, National Atlas maps, Topographic maps, Remote sensing and geodesy publications) and is continually growing with records on Mining, Materials and Energy.
- National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI): provides Information on pollutant releases, disposals and transfers for recycling reported by facilities, and their latitude and longitude coordinates. Downloadable formats include databases, spreadsheets and map layers.
Statistics Canada
- Canadian Census Geography: provides access to information on a wide range of census geographic areas (from provinces and territories down to city blocks) which allows users to relate census data to them.
- More information about Census Data, see Canadian Census Data Guide
- United States
General US Federal Government
- Data.gov (U.S. Federal Government): data from various U.S. government agencies
- GeoPlatform: access to a wide range of geospatial resource sharing across the U.S. Government.
- Federal Geographic Data Committee (FDGC)
- Geospatial Platform: an initiative that provides shared and trusted geospatial data, services, and applications for the advancement of the NSDI.
- Geospatial Metadata Tools: provide links to a number of metadata creation and editing tools.
Key US Federal Agencies (A-Z)
Census Bureau- TIGER Data Products: includes the TIGER/Line Shapefiles, TIGER/Line Geodatabases, and Cartographic Boundary Files that can be used with GIS software. For help determining which product is right for you, please see the TIGER Data Products Guide.
- Data.Census.gov: the US Census Bureau's primary site for accessing census data.
- IPUMS NHGIS (National Historical GIS): provides state and county boundaries back to 1790, tracts (where available) back to 1910 and blocks for 2000 and 2010.
- USDA Geospatial Data Gateway: one stop source for environmental and natural resources data from USDA and other federal agencies.
- USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services Soil Survey: provides various data and tools for U.S. soil survey tabular and geospatial information, including Web Soil Survey, Soil Geography, Soil Data Access.
- USDA Economic Research Service Food Access Research Atlas: provides data on food accessibility at the census tract level.
- Forest Service Geodata Clearinghouse: an online collection of datasets related to forests and grasslands, including boundaries and ownership, natural resources, roads and trails, as well as datasets related to State and private forested areas, including insect and disease threat and surface water importance.
- CropScape - National Agricultural Statistics Service Cropland Data Layer: contains cropland data layers from 1997 to 2010. Data is downloadable and the interface is user-friendly.
- PRISM Climate Group: gathers climate observations from a wide range of monitoring networks, applies sophisticated quality control measures, and develops spatial climate datasets to reveal short- and long-term climate patterns. The resulting datasets incorporate a variety of modeling techniques and are available at multiple spatial/temporal resolutions, covering the period from 1895 to the present.
- Overview of Bureau of Labor (BLS) Statistics by Geography: Most BLS programs publish data at the national level. Some programs also publish data for smaller geographic areas, allowing focus on regional, state, or local trends. This site lists specific BLS data availability by geographic coverage. This online tool allows users to select a particular state/region/area to see BLS statistics.
- The Institute of Education Sciences National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE): uses spatial data collected by NCES and the Census Bureau to create geographic locale indicators, school point locations, school district boundaries, and other types of data to support spatial analysis.
- Note: For school district boundaries, also see School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS): provides aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for school attendance areas, or school catchment areas, for selected areas in the United States for the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, mostly overlapping with NCES School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS).
- GIS and Public Health at CDC: access to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s collection of interactive GIS applications and links to GIS and public health related resources.
- Note: Also see The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care: provides boundaries of Hospital Service Areas (HSAs) and Hospital Referral Regions (HRRs) for all of the United States as well as select attributes (e.g., Medicare mortality rates, selected medical discharge rate, selected surgical discharge rates etc.)
- National Center for Health Statistics Homepage: your first stop in getting data on US health statistics that could be turned into GIS data.
- Health Resources & Service Administration (HRSA) Geospatial Data Warehouse: allows users to download GIS data for HPSA, primary care service areas and the RN national survey data.
- Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) Open: contains national foundation-level geospatial critical infrastructure data within the public domain.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Geospatial Data Storefront: provides a one-stop shop where users can search for and discover HUD's geospatial datasets, web-based mapping tools, and application programming interfaces (APIs).
- National Achieve Of Criminal Justice Data: provides data on crime and justice for secondary analysis.
- U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): includes USGS Maps; GIS data; The National Geospatial Program (comprehensive topographic information for the country); GloVis (USGS satellite image collections), Gap Analysis Project Data and Tools (aimed at protecting common plants and animals).
- EarthExplorer (EE): provides online search, browse display, metadata export, and data download for earth science data from the archives of the USGS, key datasets includes Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), Global Land Cover Characterization (GLCC).
- Bureau Of Land Management (BLM) Navigator: a centralized location to discover and access BLMs geospatial data.
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Transportation Maps and Geospatial Data: provides geospatial information and visualization tools developed by BTS, including the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), National Transit Map, National Transportation Noise Map etc.
- U.S. Energy Atlas: a comprehensive reference for web applications and geospatial data of energy infrastructure and resources in the United States.
- EIA Maps: Energy-related maps and data listed by subject.
- Note: Other energy-related data see OpenEI (focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency), USGS Energy Resources Program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
- EPA Geospatial Resources: a centralized location to discover and access EPA geospatial data and applications.
- Geospatial Download Service: provides downloadable files of those facilities or sites subject to environmental regulation.
- eGRID (Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database): a comprehensive source of data from EPA's Clean Air Markets Division on the environmental characteristics of almost all electric power generated in the U.S.
- Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program: access to data on toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities.
- Earthdata: provides various earth science geospatial data. Use the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) to search for discipline-specific data archives. You can download the global ASTER DEM data from here: ASTER Global DEM - 30 meter resolution.
- NASA Earth Observations (NEO): users can browse and download imagery of satellite data from NASA's constellation of Earth Observing System satellites. Over 50 different global datasets are represented with daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots.
- Geospatial Data Science Data and Tools: GIS data relating to renewable energy in the US (wind speeds, wave energy, solar potential).
- Renewable Energy Data Explorer (REexplorer): geospatial analysis tool for visualizing and analyzing renewable energy potential in selected non-US countries, most of which can be downloaded as GIS files.
- NOAA Data Discovery Portal: access to NOAA's vast data holdings on climate, weather, oceans, and coasts.
- The National Centers for Environmental Information: manages all of the databases for NOAA’s oceanic, atmospheric, and geophysical data.
- NOAA Digital Coast: a wide range of data and tools relating to coastal science, including over 2500 data layers that relate to Lidar, land cover, climate&weather, economic and demographic data, imagery, and much more.
- Global Historical Climatology Network monthly (GHCNm): provides monthly climate summaries from thousands of weather stations around the world. The period of record varies from station to station. The current version (GHCNm v4) consists of mean monthly temperature data, as well as a beta release of monthly precipitation data.
- NOAA National Weather Service Data GIS Portal GIS: access to GIS weather-related data. Data formats include downloadable shapefiles and KML formats, web services, and basemaps in shapefile format.
Others
- Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) GIS: links to GIS maps and data about Arctic research.
- National Park Service Data: provides GIS data and applications on U.S. national parks.
- National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC): a national organization is dedicated to GIS advocacy and the adoption of geospatial information technologies.
- NatureServe: This non-profit conservation organization is a partnership of different entities providing extensive GIS data and applications on the status and location of species and ecosystems.
- Open Topography: provides access to high-resolution topographic and bathymetric data for scientific, environmental, engineering and planning purposes. A great resource for accessing global LiDAR, DEM products. You can also generate derivative products such as hillshade and slope. You can also clip the data to return only an area of interest.
Michigan State Data
- Michigan GIS Open Data: users can browse, search, preview, and download a variety of Michigan geospatial datasets.
- Michigan 1 Meter DEM: allows for interactive discovery and download of 1 meter DEM data in Michigan from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP). Michigan View: provides easy download access to MODIS, LandSat, NAIP Imagery and more through interactive web maps.
- Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) GIS Home: share commonly used maps and data across MDOT divisions, staff, business partners, and the public.
- Enviro-weather: MSU's weather-based decision-making resource for pest, production and resource managers. Also see the Michigan Automated Weather Network (MAWN)to access station-specific weather data and related information in Michigan.
- City of Detroit Open Data: access open data from City of Detroit on all topics.
- Data Driven Detroit: a centralized repository for Detroit's public datasets, spanning a wide range of topics and geographies.
- Wayne County GIS Resources: access to GIS data, maps, apps for Wayne County.
- Global
Government Data Portals
- Government Statistical Agencies Around the World (from DATA.gov)
- Links to International Statistical Organizations and National Statistical Agencies of Countries Around the World (from US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Links to National Statistics Offices Websites (from UN National Statistical Offices)
Basemap Data and Broad Collections
- Aid Data (GeoQuery): can find and integrate sub-national data — satellite, conflict, aid, economic, health and more — from anywhere in the world into a single simple-to-use spreadsheet.
- ArcGIS Hub: provides international datasets pertaining to a multitude of topics.
- CShapes: maps the borders and capitals of independent states and dependent territories from 1886 to 2019. The dataset can be downloaded in various formats and is also accessible through the CShapes R package.
- DIVA GIS: A comprehensive and great starting point for files on administrative boundaries, water, roads, railroads, elevation, landcover, population, climate and a gazetteer for almost every country in the world.
- Esri Data and Maps: a collection of data layers, including a variety of basemap and thematic layers for the United States, Europe, and the world. There is commercial data from TomTom, Michael Bauer Research, Garmin, and Esri; federal data from the U.S. Census, The National Map Small Scale (formerly National Atlas of the United States), U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS); and data from the United Nations.
- European Union Open Data Portal: provides access to open data from international, EU, national, regional, local and geo data portals.
- Eurostat: contains core geographical data covering the whole of Europe, such as administrative boundaries, and thematic geospatial information, such as population grid data.
- GADM Global Administrative Areas: a spatial database of the location of the world's administrative boundaries for use in GIS and similar software.
- Natural Earth: provide worldwide coverage GIS data at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales.
- Ordnance Survey Open Data: Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping agency. Several datasets are available for free download.
- SEDAC (Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center)at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) (Columbia University): access to worldwide natural and social science data.
- UNEP Environmental Data Explorer: from the United Nations Environment Programme. Files types as labeled "geospatial" will be rasters. Most other files will be data in tabular format with a locational attribute (country name, etc.).
- World Resources Institute (WRI) Data: provides a wide variety of data, mostly relating to WRI projects on cities, climate, energy, food, forests, the ocean, and water around the world.
Data Portals for Natural Environments
Arctic- Antarctic Digital Database: provides vector and raster GIS datasets for antarctica including Antarctic digital elevation models, hillshade, coastlines, topographic, moraine, water, human activity, and ice feature catchment data, maintained by the British Antarctic Survey.
- QUANTARCTICA: provides hundreds of vector and raster GIS and scientific datasets for Antarctica, developed for an offline use using QGIS.
- Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Data and Databases: free and unrestricted access to Antarctic data, including SCAR COMPOSITE GAZETTEER OF ANTARCTICA.
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Arctic Open Data: provides publicly released datasets of the Arctic including aeronautical, boundaries, communications, elevation, hydrography, transportation, and natural resources.
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Data Portal: access to georeferenced data of biota species occurrence around the globe.
- NatureServe: one-stop access to the data on the status and location of species and ecosystems, which includes distribution of birds and mammals of the western hemisphere, amphibians of the world, and U.S. fishes by watershed.
- Protected Planet: the authoritative source of data on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). Users can explore the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), World Database on OECMs, Global Database on Protected Area Management Effectiveness (GD-PAME), and a wealth of associated information. Start by exploring the interactive maps on the home page, or any of Protected Planet's nine thematic areas.
- ReefBase GIS Dataset: provides GIS data on coral reefs and environmental threats to them around the world.
- ESA-CCI (European Space Agency - Climate Change Initiative): free and open access to all CCI Essential Climate Variable data products, including aerosols, biomass, clouds, fires/burned areas, greenhouse gases, glaciers, Antarctic ice sheet, Greenland ice sheet, lakes, land cover, high res land cover, ocean color, ozone, permafrost, sea salinity, sea ice, sea level, sea temperature, snow, soil moisture, and more.
- Climate Hazards Center at UCSB: provides a variety of key data sets to make informed decisions as they relate to climate early warning. The CHIRPS dataset includes worldwide rainfall data rasters at .05-degree resolution covering back to 1981, at detailed time intervals. Compiled from both remote sensing as well as station data.
- Renewable Energy Data Explorer (RE Explorer): Online mapping tool for visualizing energy-related map layers from selected non-US countries, most of which can be downloaded as GIS files.
- Geoscience Australia: provides a multitude of data, online tools, maps and publications pertaining to Australia’s geology and geography.
- Globcover - European Space Agency (ESA): an ESA initiative which aimed to develop a service capable of delivering global composites and land cover maps using as input observations from the 300m MERIS sensor on board the ENVISAT satellite mission. ESA makes available the land cover maps, which cover 2 periods: December 2004 - June 2006 and January - December 2009.
- GlobeLand30 (National Geomatics Center of China) Worldwide land cover data in 30-meter resolution raster files (GeoTIFF). Coded for ten broad classes of land cover.
- Harmonized World Soil Database: provides a 30 arc-second raster database with over 15000 different soil mapping units that combine existing regional and national updates of soil information worldwide.
- ISRIC - World Soil Information: access soil data from the International Soil Reference and Information Centre.
- The European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC): contains currently many soil data and information; most of the offered data are at European scale, while, when possible, links to national or global datasets are provided.
- GEBCO (General Bathymatric Chart of the Ocean): access to bathymetry data of the world's oceans.
- HydroSHEDS Worldwide Hydrology data (World Wildlife Federation): geo-referenced data sets (vector & raster) at various scales, including river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions, and flow accumulations. The data is based on high-resolution elevation data obtained during a Space Shuttle flight for NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM).
- Marineregions.org: includes data and links to datasets such as maritime boundaries, ecosystems, gazetteers of names, and bathymetry.
- National Oceanographic Database (British Oceanographic Data Centre): a collection of marine data sets maintained by BODC including acoustics, bathymetry, currents, meteorology, optical properties, sea level, water column temperature and chemistry, and waves.
- UNEP GEMStat: The Global Freshwater Quality Database provides scientifically-sound data and information on the state and trend of global inland water quality.
- GIS Data & Resources at the National Snow & Ice Data Center: a developing a repository of GIS-compatible snow, ice, and frozen ground data for research and planning.
Data Portals for Social Environments
- China Historical GIS (Harvard University): a database of populated places, historical place names and historical administrative units for the period of Chinese history between 221 BCE and 1911 CE.
- CGIAR-CSI (CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information): includes links to detailed SRTM elevation data, soil, water, crops datasets.
- Commercial Real Estate Information and Construction Data (Emporis): offers information about buildings for various cities worldwide. Details such as construction date/status, building height, and number of floors are included.
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations: Geospatial Information for Sustainable Food Systems: provides links to data and applications that focus on issues like agriculture production, water governance, forest management, climate change monitoring, ecosystems and biodiversity protection, emergencies and disasters management.
- FEWS Net (Famine Early Warning Systems Network): access to data and maps detailing current and projected food insecurity around the world.
- Geofabrik: offers excerpts and derived data from the OpenStreetMap dataset available for free download. Most of these files are updated every day.
- LandScan: Oak Ridge National Laboratory's LandScan is a 30x30 arc-second (approximately 1 km) gridded population of the world and it represents an ambient population (average over 24 hours) distribution. The database is refreshed annually with new versions released in Q3 of each calendar year.
- IPUMS International: provides census and survey data from around the world integrated across time and space. It also has GIS boundary files to use in conjunction with its microdata.
- OurAirports Data: a community-assisted project provides bulk data (including geospatial information) detailing airports and runways, plus listings of airport radio frequencies and global navigation aids around the world.
- World Bank Group DataBank: an analysis and visualisation tool that contains collections of time series data on a variety of topics. You can create your own queries; generate tables, charts, and maps; and easily save, embed, and share them.
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