Discover important Internet resources for research data made public individually and collectively by researchers from a variety of entities in the fields of environmental studies and ecology Online Ecological and Environmental Data explores innovative projects from a diverse array of institutions that have made environmental and ecological research information freely available online. You will find a wealth of Web site listings with URLs and complete descriptions, data field descriptions, controlled vocabulary examples, and Web screen shots that demonstrate how to use a specific site. The book will help you locate the data, procedures, instruments, notes, and other descriptive information that scientists and engineers need for replicating and building on the research of others. With Online Ecological and Environmental Data, you'll gain a better understanding of: * the cooperative design, development, and management of interdisciplinary data * cataloging multidisciplinary environmental data * data networking * new developments in information science and technology * extracting and compiling data * the convergence and dissemination of information via the Internet This unique resource explores the potential of distributing actual research data on the Web. The information you'll find in this book will enable science and technology librarians to provide effective access to library patrons. Online Ecological and Environmental Data will give librarians and other information specialists—as well as faculty and students in library sciences and technology—cutting-edge knowledge to meet the global data and information needs of the scientific community. The projects described in this book can serve as models for other disciplines, especially for the various aspects of handling data made available online, and for making this data more available and usable on the Internet for researchers and students.

Discover important Internet resources for research data made public individually and collectively by researchers from a variety of entities in the fields of environmental studies and ecology Online Ecological and Environmental Data explores innovative projects from a diverse array of institutions that have made environmental and ecological research information freely available online. You will find a wealth of Web site listings with URLs and complete descriptions, data field descriptions, controlled vocabulary examples, and Web screen shots that demonstrate how to use a specific site. The book will help you locate the data, procedures, instruments, notes, and other descriptive information that scientists and engineers need for replicating and building on the research of others. With Online Ecological and Environmental Data, you'll gain a better understanding of: * the cooperative design, development, and management of interdisciplinary data * cataloging multidisciplinary environmental data * data networking * new developments in information science and technology * extracting and compiling data * the convergence and dissemination of information via the Internet This unique resource explores the potential of distributing actual research data on the Web. The information you'll find in this book will enable science and technology librarians to provide effective access to library patrons. Online Ecological and Environmental Data will give librarians and other information specialists—as well as faculty and students in library sciences and technology—cutting-edge knowledge to meet the global data and information needs of the scientific community. The projects described in this book can serve as models for other disciplines, especially for the various aspects of handling data made available online, and for making this data more available and usable on the Internet for researchers and students.

Ecologists are increasingly tackling difficult issues like global change, loss of biodiversity and sustainability of ecosystem services. These and related topics are enormously challenging, requiring unprecedented multidisciplinary collaboration and rapid synthesis of large amounts of diverse data into information and ultimately knowledge. New sensors, computers, data collection and storage devices and analytical and statistical methods provide a powerful tool kit to support analyses, graphics and visualizations that were unthinkable even a few years ago. New and increased emphasis on accessibility, management, processing and sharing of high-quality, well-maintained and understandable data represents a significant change in how scientists view and treat data. These issues are complex and despite their importance, are typically not addressed in database, ecological and statistical textbooks. This book addresses these issues, providing a much needed resource for those involved in designing and implementing ecological research, as well as students who are entering the environmental sciences. Chapters focus on the design of ecological studies, data management principles, scientific databases, data quality assurance, data documentation, archiving ecological data and information and processing data into information and knowledge. The book stops short of a detailed treatment of data analysis, but does provide pointers to the relevant literature in graphics, statistics and knowledge discovery. The central thesis of the book is that high quality data management systems are critical for addressing future environmental challenges. This requires a new approach to how we conduct ecological research, that views data as a resource and promotes stewardship, recycling and sharing of data. Ecological Data will be particularly useful to those ecologists and information specialists that actively design, manage and analyze environmental databases. However, it will also benefit a wider audience of scientists and students in the ecological and environmental sciences.

Environmental statistics is a rapidly growing field, supported by advances in digital computing power, automated data collection systems, and interactive, linkable Internet software. Concerns over public and ecological health and the continuing need to support environmental policy-making and regulation have driven a concurrent explosion in environmental data analysis. This textbook is designed to address the need for trained professionals in this area. The book is based on a course which the authors have taught for many years, and prepares students for careers in environmental analysis centered on statistics and allied quantitative methods of data evaluation. The text extends beyond the introductory level, allowing students and environmental science practitioners to develop the expertise to design and perform sophisticated environmental data analyses. In particular, it: Provides a coherent introduction to intermediate and advanced methods for modeling and analyzing environmental data. Takes a data-oriented approach to describing the various methods. Illustrates the methods with real-world examples Features extensive exercises, enabling use as a course text. Includes examples of SAS computer code for implementation of the statistical methods. Connects to a Web site featuring solutions to exercises, extra computer code, and additional material. Serves as an overview of methods for analyzing environmental data, enabling use as a reference text for environmental science professionals. Graduate students of statistics studying environmental data analysis will find this invaluable as will practicing data analysts and environmental scientists including specialists in atmospheric science, biology and biomedicine, chemistry, ecology, environmental health, geography, and geology.

Our Ecological Footprint presents an internationally-acclaimed tool for measuring and visualizing the resources required to sustain our households, communities, regions and nations, converting the seemingly complex concepts of carrying capacity, resource-use, waste-disposal and the like into a graphic form that everyone can grasp and use. An excellent handbook for community activists, planners, teachers, students and policy makers.

This book brings together high quality articles exploring the design, implementation, management, funding, promotion and evaluation of networked information systems that advocate sustainability and the protection of natural ecosystems. Case studies of deployed and planned information systems complement theoretical work on the methodological, technological and organizational foundations of environmental online communication.