Increasing amounts of data are being published and shared to improve our understanding, inform decision making, and underpin research. Here are links to recommended sources of trusted and authoritative data.
Scottish Air Quality: Data - Options to retrieve data relating to air quality in Scotland from the present day back to 1986.
Met Office: Data point - Provides access to the Met Office’s Public Sector Information (PSI) data sets using an Application Program Interface (API).
NatureScot: Natural Spaces - Natural Spaces allows you to download a wide range of the spatial data held by NatureScot. You can browse through the data available, and use your NatureScot account to access the data in several GIS formats.
Forestry Commission Scotland: Datasets - This is the Forestry Commission’s Open Data Site for spatial data that can be used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Scottish Forestry Scotland: Datasets - This is Scottish Forestry's Open Data portal. You can view, query and download a wide variety of geospatial data that can be used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
NBN Atlas Scotland - The NBN Atlas Scotland is a portal of the NBN Atlas, a collaborative project that aggregates biodiversity data from multiple sources and makes it available and usable online. It is the country’s largest collection of freely available biodiversity data.
The James Hutton Institute: Soils maps Soils data available for download, split into the following categories of soil maps (including 1:25,000 Soil Map (partial cover), 1:250,000 Soil Map (national cover)); point data (including National Soils Inventory for Scotland); thematic data and capability maps.
The Scottish Government: Remote Sensing Portal - Find, share and reuse remote sensed data provided by Scottish public sector organisations. The site currently serves as hub for Scottish Public Sector LiDAR data which you can download by 10km tiles and web services.
Historic Environment Scotland: Spatial downloads - Datasets that are available for download and links to additional resources.
Scottish Public Health Observatory: Overview of key data sources - Easy access to information about the range of data sources available to help those working to improve population health in Scotland
Scotland’s aquaculture: Data - Provides access to a range of information about aquaculture in Scotland
Marine Scotland: DATA - a platform for publishing datasets with associated digital object identifiers (DOI's)
SEPA: Environmental data - A range of datasets related to the environment, published by SEPA
The Scottish Government: Statistics - Access a range of official statistics about Scotland
The Scottish Government: Spacial data - Scotland’s catalogue of spatial data where you can find, share and reuse spatial data provided by Scottish public sector organisations
Improvement Services: Spatial Hub - Web portal for the upload, download and consumption of spatial data from Scotland’s local and national park authorities.
Data.gov - Find data published by UK government departments and agencies, public bodies and local authorities.
Europa EU: Data - The single point of access to a growing range of data from the institutions and other bodies of the European Union (EU).
The James Hutton Institute: Natural Asset Register - A Natural Asset Register Data Portal, funded by Scottish Government.
This page was updated on 26 Aug 2020
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