GEO Data Portal

The GEO Data Portal is the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments. Its online database holds more than 450 different variables, as national, sub-regional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes such as Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. The data can be displayed and explored on-the-fly through maps, graphs, data tables, downloaded in various popular formats, or copied and pasted into word processors.

The successful development and wide usage of the Data Portal, combined with strong demand from regions and countries, has lead to various initiatives to install regional manifestations of the Data Portal in certain parts of the world. Guided and supported by DEWA/GRID-Europe staff, these regional GEO Data Portals are to provide additional and more detailed data from the region itself, capturing regional and national information sources and improve access to core environmental data sets for use in GEO and related assessment and reporting work.

The first region that has started to develop such a data system is Latin American & Caribbean region (LAC). After various consultations and review meetings held in the region, the GEO LAC Data Portal will be formally launched in early 2006.

In the West Asia region, a first start has been made by applying the global GEO Data Portal template for its regional implementation. This prototype was set-up in the summer 2005 during a consultation in Abu Dhabi, and currently is undergoing minor adoptions and changes, before being further developed to fulfill the data needs of the regional user community. A similar approach is taken in the Asia& Pacific region, where the prototype GEO Data Portal has been developed in the second half of the year 2005, and has been reviewed last November before taking the next steps.

In Africa, the regional Data Portal has already progressed substantially, being compatible with the global Data Portal and envisaged to capture much more data and indicators to serve the GEO process, including the African Environment Outlook and other initiatives in and of the region.

Access to the GEO Data Portal: http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/