Research Library

Tools, data & maps for risk research

A curated directory of the resources we rely on — and recommend — for rigorous, reproducible work on risk and policy. Links open the current home of each third-party resource; the collection is reviewed and refreshed periodically.

Tools & Readings

Software and references for climate analysis, statistics and computation, forensics, archiving, and disciplined risk practice.

Cal-Adapt Local Climate Snapshot Localized California climate-change projections for temperature, precipitation, and extremes. Google BigQuery Sandbox Query terabyte-scale public datasets in the cloud, free, with no credit card required. Math & Computational Science (NIST) NIST's gateway to mathematical, statistical, and computational-science software and references. Image Forensics (FotoForensics) Error-level analysis and metadata inspection to test whether an image has been manipulated. Software Carpentry Foundational computing skills for researchers — the shell, version control, and programming. Web Archiving Tools A maintained catalog of tools for capturing, storing, and replaying web content. Working In Uncertainty Free, practical writing on risk management and decision-making under uncertainty. EPA Carbon Footprint Calculator Estimate and compare household greenhouse-gas emissions and reduction options. Naval Safety Command Mishap data, safety advisories, and risk-management resources from the U.S. Navy.

Readings — free, complete texts

A shelf of freely available books on statistics, machine learning, decision analysis, and risk.

An Introduction to Statistical Learning The Elements of Statistical Learning Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms A Course in Machine Learning Data Mining and Analysis: Fundamental Concepts A Programmer's Guide to Data Mining Bayesian Methods for Hackers Think Bayes Handbook of Applied Cryptography Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Data

Datasets and repositories spanning census, security, environment, public health, and the global economy.

U.S. Census Bureau Data Search and extract American Community Survey, decennial, and economic data (successor to DataFerret). DocumentCloud Upload, analyze, annotate, and publish primary-source documents. Gapminder Data Global development indicators — health, income, population — with interactive visualizations. FracFocus Chemical Registry The U.S. registry of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, by well and operator. Earth — nullschool A live, animated visualization of global weather, ocean, and air-quality conditions. Harvard Dataverse An open repository for sharing, citing, and preserving research datasets. Global Terrorism Database START's open database of terrorist events worldwide, 1970 onward. TEVUS Database Terrorism and extremist violence in the United States, from START at the University of Maryland. Linked Data Standards and tools for connecting structured data across the web. AWS Open Data Registry Large public datasets hosted on AWS — satellite imagery, genomics, climate, and more. ProPublica Data Store Cleaned datasets behind ProPublica's investigative journalism. Google Ngram Viewer Track the frequency of words and phrases across millions of digitized books over time. KDnuggets Datasets A long-running directory of datasets for data mining and machine learning. Public.Resource.Org Free public access to government records, laws, and safety standards. Right-to-Know Network Environmental and chemical-hazard data — TRI, RMP, spills, and more. Cornell CISER Data Social- and economic-research data archive from Cornell's CISER. BYU FHSS Research Support Guides and support for collecting your own data, including from the web. CDC Vital Statistics U.S. birth, death, and mortality microdata from the National Center for Health Statistics. PubMed / MEDLINE The National Library of Medicine's index of biomedical literature. World Inequality Database Global wealth and income inequality data (successor to the World Top Incomes Database). World Bank Open Data Free global development indicators and analytical tools. UC Irvine ML Repository A classic collection of datasets for machine-learning research. Medicare / CMS Data Provider quality, cost, and utilization data from CMS. UK Open Government Data The United Kingdom's central open-data portal. Austin Open Data City of Austin, Texas municipal open-data portal. Chicago Open Data City of Chicago municipal open-data portal. DataSF (San Francisco) City and County of San Francisco open-data portal. Seattle Open Data City of Seattle, Washington municipal open-data portal.

Maps

Live and analytical maps for hazards, climate, infrastructure, and human activity.

Air Pollution Map (PM2.5) Berkeley Earth's real-time global air-quality map. FEMA Flood Maps The FEMA Map Service Center — official flood-hazard maps by address. FEMA National Risk Index County- and tract-level risk from 18 natural hazards, with social-vulnerability layers. Marine Traffic Live worldwide vessel positions and port activity. Crime Map (CityProtect) Mapped police incident reports across participating agencies (successor to CrimeReports). Digital Attack Map (DDoS) A live map of global distributed denial-of-service attacks. Live Air Traffic Flightradar24's real-time global flight tracking. Global Incident Map A worldwide map of terrorism, hazards, and emerging incidents. NASA NEX Climate Projections NASA Earth Exchange downscaled climate projections (NEX-DCP30). IUCN Red List The global inventory of species — and plants — at risk of extinction. NASA Eyes on the Earth Track NASA's Earth-observing satellites and vital signs in 3D. NUKEMAP Model the effects of a hypothetical nuclear detonation on any location. Global Slavery Index Country-level estimates and maps of modern slavery (successor to SlaveryMap). U.S. Carbon Footprint Maps CoolClimate's average household carbon footprint by ZIP code. U.S. Cluster Mapping Harvard-built maps of regional industry clusters and economic performance. Coastal Barrier Resources Mapper USFWS map of the federally protected Coastal Barrier Resources System. U.S. Drought Monitor Weekly national maps of drought severity and extent.