Environmental Data Management - Best Practices
This document is an overview of environmental data principles, methods, and resources in environmental data management.
This document presents the basic concepts and standards in data management by presenting a multitude of concrete examples, especially for biodiversity and physico-chemical data.
A large amount of data and information is produced on an ongoing basis by departments, research organizations, communities and citizens. However, all data are not readily understandable, accessible and usable by anyone or any organization. Basic notions of data management can contribute to improving data integrity, sustainability and accessibility.
The objective of the current document is to offer such basic concepts, to contribute to a better understanding of the data life cycle, to provide principles and to foster the adoption of environmental data management best practices. Such an endeavour is part of the St. Lawrence Global Observatory mandate as a service to its members, specifically targeted towards SLGO members without all the necessary infrastructures and means required to manage their data.
Each step of the data life cycle is presented and discussed. Additionally, three of the main themes of this cycle are further developed under specific titles: sustainability, metadata and data sharing.
This publication should be cited as follows:
St. Lawrence Global Observatory (SLGO). 2015. Environmental Data Management Best Practices – Basic Concepts. 36 p. [PDF Version 
, 1,4 MB]
