April 22nd is Earth Day! That means it’s time to highlight useful materials for researching environmental science and climate change. Let’s look at some of the many environment-related resources that you can access in the FSU Libraries’ Government Documents collection. For the sake of manageability, we’ll be focusing on information from U.S. Federal Government documents. Keep in mind that you can find many useful resources provided by the State of Florida and United Nations collections as well!
When considering government sources of environmental information, one of the first that comes to mind is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
For online resources, check out the EPA’s Climate Change page. Here, you can find a variety of information, from basic overviews of climate change topics to technical reports, journal articles, and guidance for taking steps toward environmentally friendly practices. The Climate Change Research page offers more specialized resources, including the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), as well as topics such as community and health impacts, air and water quality, and energy production.
Strozier’s physical Government Documents collection features many EPA publications, tracing the history of the agency and the evolution of environmental research. These include reports to Congress on climate policy (such as this one from 1989), environmental recommendations to the public (such as this Citizens Guide on reducing air pollution), and in-depth research documents (see this report on rising sea levels).
If you’re looking for information on biodiversity and conservation efforts, you’ll want to check out the Forest Service (FS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
Both agencies offer online educational resources on ecological health, conservation methods, and climate research. The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains the FWS Library, a digital service for finding conservation policies, scientific journals, and other FWS publications. You can also find similar collections in the Forest Service’s Research Data Archive.
In Strozier, you can access printed reports and maps from these agencies, such as this 1966 map of national forest lands and this series of wildlife research reports. They also document conservation initiatives, from overviews of their accomplishments to reports on specific topics (see Roadless Area Conservation and Colorado Gray Wolf Recovery). Another item that may be useful is Our Living Resources, a publication by the DOI’s National Biological Service, which tracks changes in wildlife populations, migration patterns, natural habitats, and environmental quality from the 1960s through the 1990s.
If you’d like to set your sights a little higher (literally), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) are great resources for meteorological and other atmospheric data.
The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) provided by NOAA offers online data collections, interactive maps, and information on environmental satellites. Furthermore, the library houses additional resources, such as this Atlas detailing precipitation and temperature data across the United States from 1948 to 1991. Other publications include the NESDIS Strategic Plan from 2001 and climate datasets from the NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Program.
Speaking of NASA, the Earth Observing System project is another source of detailed climate and environmental information. Here, you can find meteorological as well as geological data by way of data, maps, and satellite imagery. EOS also publishes a newsletter if you’d like to keep up to date with the project. You can additionally find EOS research reports in Strozier’s Government Documents collection.
For more information, check out our U.S. Government LibGuide! The pages on the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, and NASA are some good starting points for climate research. If you’re having trouble locating a document, the databases ProQuest and HathiTrust may be helpful.
You can find our physical Government Documents collection on the lower level of Strozier Library, past the periodicals. Don’t hesitate to ask a library staff member for assistance! Likewise, you can always reach out to your subject librarian for guidance on locating relevant sources and materials.
Great resource! Thanks!