An open, versioned index of public environmental data — so the record stays findable when the websites move.
Environment Almanac is a catalog, not a data warehouse. Each entry is a small, human-reviewed, machine-validated record pointing to an authoritative public dataset — its canonical source, how to access it, where it's archived, and whether it is still reachable today. A daily job re-checks every source and opens an issue when one goes dark.
It covers EPA and USGS data — air quality, toxic chemical releases, environmental enforcement, and water quality — the datasets researchers, journalists, and communities rely on.
catalog.json is the machine-readable index; browse catalog/ for the human-readable source.
The catalog starts with a few seed datasets (EPA Air Quality System (AQS), Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), AirNow, Water Quality Portal) and grows by contribution.
You don't need to write code: suggest a dataset with a short form
and a curator will turn it into an entry. Prefer a PR? Adding a dataset is one file in catalog/ —
see CONTRIBUTING.md. CI validates every entry against the schema.
Stewards: see docs/STEWARDING.md.
Catalog, don't host. This repo maps data; it does not store data bytes. See AGENTS.md.
- Catalog data (
catalog/,catalog.json) — CC0 1.0. Per-dataset licenses are recorded in each entry'slicensefield. - Tooling (
scripts/, schema, CI) — MIT.
A vertical of The Almanac — a community-maintained commons for public data worth keeping findable. Built from almanac-template.