Guides: Environmental Studies: Statistics

Tips for Finding Statistics

Check the data sources used by books or articles on your topic (in the bibliography or table source).
Think of which organizations are likely to produce the data and check the web sites of those sources.
Surf the web using terms likely to appear in full-text statistical tables or reports. Try a specialized data search engine such as Zanran (web search engine for finding data and statistics in graphs, tables, & reports)
Consult this guide for major sources of statistics & data (both free and subscription resources).
Ask a librarian. They are familiar with a variety of general and specialized sources.

Environment-Specific

Annual Energy Review
Yearly reports on energy use and supply from the Energy Information Administration. Included are data on total energy production, consumption, and trade; overviews of petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, nuclear energy, renewable energy, international energy, as well as financial and environmental indicators.
Climate Change Indicators in the U.S.
Report with graphs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. See the bibliography for sources of data.
Climate Change Knowledge Portal (World Bank)
"Information, data and reports about climate change around the world...query, map, compare, chart and summarize key climate and climate-related information."
Country Greenhouse Gas Emissions
From World Resources Institute. GHG data analysis by year, gas, country/state, and sector for 186 Countries. See also U.S. State GHG Emissions.
DOE Data Explorer (Dept. of Energy/OSTI)
Search tool for publicly available collections or sources of DOE-sponsored scientific research data. Includes numeric data, interactive data maps, gene sequences, animations and simulations, figures from published papers, data plots, and more.
Envirofacts
Searches EPA databases by area of interest for information on facilities required to report to state or federal agencies. Discover compliance status, pollutants, demographic profiles of surrounding areas, and more.
EPA Databases
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
FAOSTAT
'Provides time-series and cross sectional data relating to food and agriculture for some 200 countries.' Also see FAO Statistics page for links to additional databases.
Gap Analysis Program (USGS)
Data on common species, land cover, and protected areas.
Global Environment Outlook Data Portal
UN Environmental Program. Provides data used in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report. National, subregional, regional and global statistics and geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP.'
OECD Environment Statistics
Time series data available in excel on a variety of topics. Also see OECD's Environment at a Glance report for commentary.
Sustainable Energy for All (World Bank)
"Country level historical data for access to electricity and non-solid fuel; share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption by technology; and energy intensity rate of improvement." See also WDI for additional environmental data.
Water Use in the United States
U.S., state, and county water use information. Also contains link to National Water Information System for more detailed data.

All Topics

See these other guides for additional sources of statistics:

Statistics by Topic A-Z Guide
For statistics on a wide range of topics in all fields arranged A-Z (crime, demographics, children, labor, etc.) this Middlebury Libraries Statistics Guide has links to both national and international resources.
Economic Statistics Guide
The main economic statistics databases can be found on this separate Middlebury library guide. Many of these sources also include environmental indicators. Start here if you need our top statistical databases with a variety of variables or specialized resources arranged by broad category.

Tips for Evaluating Statistics & Infographics

Just like any source, run it through the C.R.A.A.P. Test or C.R.A.P. Test to help you evaluate what you find.

Specific tips for evaluating data sources:

If the source is responsible for the data - read About Us pages and do more research about the source.
If the source uses outside data, go to the original source and verify - see if they "cherry-picked" the data, thus distorting it or misleading by omission.
Look for other reputable sources that either corroborate or challenge the data.

In addition here are tips for evaluating visualizations such as infographics:

Infographics Lie: How to Spot the B.S.
3 steps to consider by Randy Olson at Fast Company.