The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides an interactive map of hazardous waste cleanups across the United States. The "Cleanups in My Community" map provides a huge amount of information on thousands of cleanups of many kinds. For every cleanup, users can access and download reports, assessments, compliance actions, and the EPA's assessment of the potential for any contaminated land to be used for renewable energy development.
Less than one-third of the U.S. is mapped at the level of detail necessary to make informed planning decisions on a local scale concerning natural resources, natural hazards, infrastructure planning, and environmental stewardship. In the Great Lakes region, the Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition (GLGMC), a group including U.S. and Canadian state and provincial geological surveys, is producing detailed 3D geologic maps that are helping to provide decision-relevant information to Great Lakes state communities. Due to similar regional geology, these state surveys can work together, sharing their expertise and resources so that each can better address geologic issues in their area. Working with the communities, the GLGMC provides and makes maps that solve problems such as groundwater contamination and resource development.
The National Pipeline Mapping System (NPMS) Public Viewer from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration allows users to view pipelines and related information by individual county for the entire United States. The map includes:
The U.S. Geological Survey's National Coal Resources Data System comes with an interactive map that provides a huge amount of information on the distribution, thickness, and classification of coal in the United States.
The interactive map contains over 250,000 data points, each typically representing a core sample, drill hole, or driller's log in a specific location. You can use the "Filter" tool to focus in on specific areas, or on data collected by specific organizations. Commonly available data include:
The U.S. Geological Survey provides an interactive map of historical oil and gas production in the United States from 1859 to 2005, including Alaska and Hawaii. In this map, the country is split into quarter-mile cells and the production status of all wells in that cell are aggregated for each time period.
The map can be filtered to show oil and gas production pre-1900, for each decade of the 20th century, and for 2000-2005.
The U.S. Geological Survey's interactive map, "Energy In Our Nation," provides a wide range of information on energy resources in the United States, including:
The U.S. Geological Survey's interactive windFarm map provides detailed information on wind farms across the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii.
By zooming in on the map, users can find the precise location of tens of thousands of individual turbines, with information for each turbine including the owner, generating capacity, on-line date, type of tower, blade length, total height, and the confidence with which this information can be given.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration provides an interactive map showing the major tight oil and shale gas plays in the lower 48 states.
Tight oil and shale gas are two of the main types of "unconventional" oil and gas resources, and played an important role in the early-21st-century resurgence in domestic production of oil (beginning around 2009) and natural gas (beginning around 2006).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's nowCOAST web app provides real-time observations, forecasts, and warnings for a wide range of coastal and inland weather, water, air, and hazard issues. Available layers and services include:
The U.S. Geological Survey has produced a visualization that shows how much freshwater is used by each state for a variety of purposes. The visualization resizes the states according to how much freshwater they use.
The visualization shows freshwater withdrawals for thermoelectric power generation, public supply, irrigation, industrial use, or total withdrawals, with data available in 5-year intervals from 1950 to the present.
Click here to access the visualization of state water use.