State Marine Environmental Data Resources

Also available: Federal Marine Environmental Data Resources

Updated: March 13, 2002

California

• The California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES)

  CERES is an information system developed by the California Resources Agency to facilitate access to a variety of electronic data describing California's rich and diverse environments. The goal of CERES is to improve environmental analysis and planning by integrating natural and cultural resource information from multiple contributors and by making it available and useful to a wide variety of users.

• San Fancisco Bay EcoAtlas

  The San Francisco Bay Institute has developed this atlas which consists of information on GIS, Historical Ecology, Habitats, Animals, and Plants.

Connecticut

• Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) Geo-Spatial Data Resources

  This University of Connecticut database offers a wide range of data sets on every county of Connecticut from census to water quality information.

Florida

• Generalized Water Information System (GWIS)

  Maintained by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, background ground water quality data are available in DBF file format for each of Florida's sixty-seven counties, and the twenty-two VISA locations. These data are from each of the state's primary aquifers, and include measurements for many different chemical constituents including: major ions, nutrients, volatile organic compounds, pesticides, trace metals, base neutral acid extractables, and field parameters.

Hawaii

• Water Resource Data

  ArcInfo™ files containing data on wells, streams and watersheds, run by the Commission on Water Resource Management.

• Hawaii Biological Survey

  Maintained by the Bishop Museum, databases include the latest up-to-date information on fungi, plants, and animals occurring in the Hawaiian Islands:

  • Hawaiian arthropods checklist
  • Bishop Museum arthropod types
  • Native Hawaiian land and freshwater snails checklist
  • Alien Hawaiian land and freshwater snails checklist
  • Hawaiian fish checklist
  • Fish specimen list
  • Hawaiian bird checklist
  • Peregrine Falcon sightings in Hawaii
  • Hawaiian herpetology checklist
  • Hawaiian mammal checklist
  • Hawaiian Foraminifera checklist
  • Hawaiian plant checklist

Maine

• Maine Office of GIS

  This site offers a wide range of data sets on every county of Maine, from elevation data to fish counts.

South Carolina

• Surface Water Stage, Discharge, Quality and Precipitation

  The Water Resources Division of the SC Department of Natural Resources has a cooperative agreement with the US Geological Survey to install automatic real-time streamflow, river stage and lake elevation gages across the State. These gages periodically transmit their data via satellite to the USGS field office in Columbia, SC. These data are transmitted to the SCDNR Computer systems several times a day, giving our scientists and engineers near real-time information as to the state of the lakes and streams in the South Carolina.

Virginia

• Water, Air and Wastewater Management Databases

  The Department of Environmental Quality maintains technical databases that house a variety of environmental information. In addition, the agency conducts studies on environmental issues throughout the Commonwealth. The following list, which is updated periodically, describes reports, studies and databases that are currently in use or kept by DEQ. Each item includes a DEQ contact person who can provide additional information. Many of the databases are kept on specialized software for use by DEQ. Requests for information from these databases may involve a fee, as explained in DEQ's Freedom of Information Act policy.

Other

• Guam Hyrodologic Survey

  Water quality, stream flow data, and geologic data are available through the University of Guam's Water and Environmental Research Institue of the Western Pacific.

• Environmental Data Standards

  The Environmental Data Standards Council (EDSC), establiushed by the State-EPA Information Management Work Group (IMWG), have completed and approved six data standards Data standards to help improve the ability of partners (internal and external) to exchange data efficiently and accurately and also assist secondary users of data to understand, interpret, and use data appropriately. Data Standards are documented agreements on representations, formats, and definitions of common data. Data standards improve the quality of environmental data and the ability to share it by:

• Increasing data compatibility
• Improving the consistency and efficiency of data collection
• Reducing data redundancy

  Data standards developed by the EDSC will be reviewed annually after issuance or sooner if significant issues have been raised.