United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). The UNSD Environmental Statistics measure ten indicators globally, compiled from a wide range of data sources, according to the demands for international environmental statistics and the availability of internationally comparable data. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/envstats/qindicators.cshtml. It is still in an early stage of development in many countries.
The EARTHDATA developed by NASA provides a wide range of resources for Open Science https://earthdata.nasa.gov/ . It is recommended to dive into the resources provided. The data available can be downloaded from https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data. The most common tool used to find remote sensing data is the EarthExplorer: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov
The European Union protects the status of fragile species and habitats through the Natura 200. This is the European network of protected sites , based on the 1979 Birds Directive and the 1992 Habitats Directive. They provide alphanumeric and geographical data: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/natura-11.
The Copernicus Programme is the “Europe’s eyes on Earth”. It provides six services with remote sensing data, fundamentally for policy management.
- Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CMS). https://land.copernicus.eu/
- Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/
- Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS). https://emergency.copernicus.eu/
- Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS). https://marine.copernicus.eu/
- Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). https://climate.copernicus.eu/
- https://sea.security.copernicus.eu/
All data together is available in: https://www.copernicus.eu/en/accessing-data-where-and-how/conventional-data-access-hubs
In addition, the Copernicus with the European Commission hosts the Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) platforms to facilitate and standardise access to data in the cloud. This allows to operate without downloading a huge amount of datasets. They are not free. https://www.copernicus.eu/en/access-data/dias
Land Use and Coverage Area frame Survey (LUCAS). This data is managed by the Eurostats. It is in situ land cover and land use data collection over EU’s territory based on statistical calculations that interpret observations in the field. Harmonised and unbiased for validation. Point data with alphanumeric information. It is in point geometry and allows us to validate land cover polygons, such as Corine Land Cover polygons. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=LUCAS_-_Land_use_and_land_cover_survey#How_can_LUCAS_data_be_used.3F
EARTH ONLINE platform: it is a scientific and technical portal on Earth Observation activities by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is the entry point of all remote sensing data from Copernicus and Third Party Missions (Earth Explorers, such as SMOS). This platform provides the access to the following data hubs:
- Copernicus Open Access Hub
- Earth Observation Catalogue (EO CAT)
- Copernicus Space Component Data Access Portal (CSCDA)
- Planetary Data Access (PANDA)
- Data and Information Access Services (DIAS)
There are user manuals and additional documentation in each data hub. The data of future missions will be included in this platform.
Essential Climate Variables: These are geophysical records generated from systematic Earth Observations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides a very detailed data access matrix of Atmosphere, Ocean and Land monitoring. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gosic/gcos-essential-climate-variable-ecv-data-access-matrix
Although they do not provide direct access to data, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) provides information about the global environment monitoring. https://gcos.wmo.int/en/essential-climate-variables/table
ETOPO1 Global Relief Model. This was released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2009. It’s a 1 arc-minute global digital elevation model (DEM) of the Earth’s surface that includes both land topography and ocean bathymetry. There is the possibility to download the data in two different formats: geotagged TIFF or netCDF.