EarthTrends

An environmental information portal for researching global topics, such as water resources, climate and atmosphere, population and health, energy resources, and agriculture and food. Allows users to gather information from the searchable database, display data tables, view country profiles, or select maps with global, regional, and country-level environmental information. "Earthtrends is a free online database that focuses on issues of sustainable development and the environment. It includes data from over 40 internationally recognized sources, including international and national agencies as well as private corporations and organizations. This attractive and well laid-out site includes time series for over 200 countries and 500 variables in subjects ranging from agriculture and food, biodiversity, climate, economics, business and the environment, energy, population, and water resources. In some cases statistics go back forty to fifty years, depending on the availability of data. In addition, the site offers country profiles, maps, selected articles, and links to related information. Free registration is required to view some data. Although some of the data is very specialized, this is a useful resource for quickly accessing and comparing a variety of sources and for comparing countries and regions on a wide range of environmental and social topics such as the percentage of the population living on less than $1 per day, CO2 emissions per capita, the number of organic farms, or the number of mobile telephone subscribers." -- Reviewed February 25, 2004 "Best Free Reference Web Sites 2004," RUSA Quarterly, Fall 2004. Comp. by the MARS Best Free Websites Committee, RUSA, ALA.