Using open data to address pressing social-ecological issues

Rachael E. Blake, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, Annapolis, MD and Quentin D. Read, SESYNC, Annapolis, MD

Socio-ecological synthesis is an important tool in addressing the toughest challenges facing our globe, and has seen considerable growth over the past few decades. Synthesis can move forward with fewer hurdles when data sources are open and accessible, and these data resources are growing in number, subject area coverage, temporal coverage, and level of detail. But, discovering open data remains a critical obstacle to synthesis research. To help address this, we highlight a few open datasets and socio-ecological synthesis research projects that might provide informative examples for ecologists.