Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science Data

Generic  Political and Physical Data

Regional Data

Topical Data

Other Data

Natural Earth Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.

DIVA-GIS political boundaries of different administrative hierarchies, infrastructure, and physical features, and are useful for constructing base maps.

Amazons

Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) includes datasets of global ecosystems, croplands, air quality, historical land use, land cover change, and datasets specific to the Amazon Basin. 

USGS GIS Data contains GIS data on a variety of topics at mostly regional levels of representation.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Geospatial data a collection of GIS data resources on topics like bird conservation, wetlands, and administrative boundaries of the US Fish and Wildlife Agency.

UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) manages numerous high quality geospatial data sets at various scales (global, continental, national and subnational) on a variety of environment related themes.

World Wildlife Federation EcoRegions Data are subdivided by 7 biogeographic realms (Afrotropical, Australasia, Indo-Malayan, Nearctic, Neotropical, Oceania, Palearctic) representing the most distinctive examples of biodiversity based on the following parameters: species richness, endemism, higher taxonomic uniqueness (e.g., unique genera or families, relict species or communities, primitive lineages), extraordinary ecological or evolutionary phenomena (e.g., extraordinary adaptive radiations, intact large vertebrate assemblages, presence of migrations of large vertebrates), global rarity of the major habitat type.

Raster maps of environmental variables including soil pH, potential evapotranspiration, average snow depth and many more.

• Lifemapper: Species distribution maps - both recorded and predicted (based on climate, terrain and land cover). Covers a huge number of species. *Data is available by clicking on Species Archive, searching for a species and then clicking on the number of points and choosing the SHP link at the top. Alternatively, web services are available.
• WWF World Ecoregions: Shapefile of ecoregions as defined by the WWF Conservation Science Program.
• Ecoregions 2017: a new map and a major update of the 2001 WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, depicting 846 ecoregions that represent our living planet. The shapefile can be downloaded under the 'About' link.
• Anthropogenic Biomes: Ecosystem unit maps derived from human interactions with ecosystems creating 'anthropogenic biomes'. Gridded data at 5 arc-seconds available.
• Net Primary Productivity: Gridded Net Primary Productivity data across the globe, including a novel measure of 'Human Appropriation of NPP' measuring how much of the NPP of an area humans are using.
• World Soil Information: Gridded datasets covering the world's soils at a maximum resolution of 5 arc-minutes with 22 attributes for each cell including organic carbon content, gypsum content, water capacity etc. Data is given for topsoil and subsoil. More detailed datasets for individual countries and continents are available.
• Harmonized World Soil Database: Combining regional and national soil databases and maps from many countries under the Land Use Change programme of the UN FAO. Includes soil units and parameters (such as pH, depth, and texture) and is at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds.
• Global High Resolution Soil Water Balance: Raster data containing actual evapotranspiration and soil water deficit with a resolution of 30 arcseconds (approx 1km).
• Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data System: A wide range of ocean carbon and acidiication datasets, collected from research vessels and model outputs
• Total Carbon Column Observing Network: Observations of total carbon columns in the atmosphere from Fourier Transform Spectrometers
• UNEP WCMC: Variety of datasets from the United Nations Environment Programme including global wetlands, global distribution of coral reefs, mangrove distributions and more.
• Aquamaps: Standardised distribution maps for over 11,000 species of fish, marine mammals and invertebrates. *Data available for download under High Resolution Maps and Environmental Data links.
• Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of terrestrial ecological regions across the world.
• Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of freshwater ecological regions across the world.
• Marine Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of marine ecological regions across the world.
• BioFRESH: Contemporary distributions of freshwater species, mapped in vector format across the world
• Global Habitat Heterogeneity: A set of 14 metrics on the spatial heterogeneity of global habitat, at 1km, 5km and 25km resolutions, derived from MODIS EVI data.
• The Nature Conservancy - Geospatial Conservation Atlas: Various interactive maps and downloads of conservation data, including Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, Coral Reefs, Mangroves and more.
• Global High Air Pollutants: Global high-resolution (1km, daily) data on air pollution, derived from satellite data, ground data and models. Click the GHAP link at the top.
• Water Productivity through Open Access of Remotely sensed data (WaPOR): Data to monitor and improve water and land productivity in agriculture, including evapotranspiration, interception, net primary productivity and more.

ArcGis Online an expansive collection of user-generated data on diverse topics and areas.

World Soil Information: Contains grids representing various sol characteristics and components like Organic Carbon Density, Soil organic carbon stock, bulk density, clay content, course fragments, sand, silt, water content, nitrogen content, soil groups (e.g. arenosols, regosols, solonchaks, etc., etc.) and more.

Harmonized World Soil Database [via the FAO-UN] is a 30 arc-second raster database with over 15 000 different soil mapping units that combines existing regional and national updates of soil information worldwide (SOTER, ESD, Soil Map of China, WISE) with the information contained within the 1:5 000 000 scale FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World (FAO, 1971-1981).

Elevation

• GDEM: 30m resolution global elevation data derived from ASTER satellite images
• SRTM (nice download interface): Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for most of the world. Same data as next item, but with a nice download interface.
• EarthEnv-DEM90: 90m-resolution near-global DEM created by merging the GDEM and SRTM products and post-processing to fill voids and smooth data.
• ETOPO1: 1 arc-minute resolution relief model including ocean bathymetry.
• Global Multi-Resolution Topography: Gridded elevation at approximately 100m resolution, covering terrestrial and sea-floor topography.
• MERIT DEM: Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain DEM, created by removing multiple different types of errors from existing DEMs including SRTM. Available by emailing the developer for a password.
• ALOS Global Digital Surface Model: 30m-resolution Digital Surface model from the ALOS satellite
• NASADEM: 1-arc-second resolution DEM based on SRTM data
• EU-DEM: 25m-resolution DEM covering the whole of Europe, available for download in tiles
• OpenTopography: A community-based site giving free access to high-resolution topography data. Data at the moment appears to be clustered on the West Coast of the USA and in Greenland, and is available both as dense point clouds and processed DEMs.
• ArcticDEM: Detailed elevation models of all land areas greater than 60 degrees north, generated using photogrammetry from high-res satellite images.

• HydroSHEDS: Hydrological data and maps based on the STRM elevation data. Includes river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions and flow accumulations for the globe.
• Catchment Characterisation and Modelling: Data on river basins, catchments and rivers for the European Union area.
• Major Watersheds of the World Deliniation: Vector data showing the outlines of major watersheds (river basins) across the world.
• Water Isotopes: Global grids of hydrogen and oxygen isotope composition of precipitation and environmental waters in ArcGRID format. Data can be downloaded for whole globe or individual continents.
• JRC Water Portal: European water data from the EC Joint Research Centre, including data on quantity, quality, price, use, exploitation and irrigation.
• General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans: A range of gridded bathymetric datasets compiled by a group of experts.
• EarthEnv Freshwater Ecosystems Environmental Information: 1km-resolution environmental information for freshwater ecosystems, covering almost the whole globe. Information includes climate, land-cover, soil and geology.
• Global River Widths from Landsat (GRWL): Dataset containing information on widths of rivers (max, min, mean, median for each segment of river) across the world, derived from Landsat data.

Snow/Ice

• Randolph Glacier Inventory: A global inventory of glacier outlines, including some multi-temporal data. Major focus on quality control.
• NSIDC Frozen Ground maps: Maps of various types of frozen ground (permafrost) in the Arctic and various other areas. Data can be downloaded by clicking on the map name then selecting 'Access Data'
• Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MAISE): Sea ice extent for the Northern Hemisphere from the NSIDC