The Global Resource Information Database (GRID) consists of a network of cooperating centers dedicated to making environmental data and information more readily accessible to environmental analysts. Its mission is to provide timely and reliable geo-referenced environmental data and information to help address environmental issues at global, regional and national levels. GRID's mandate has guided GRID's activities. The history of GRID dates back to 1985.
GRID's long-term objectives are threefold:
To enhance availability and open exchange of global and regional environmental geo-referenced data sets; to provide UN and intergovernmental bodies with access to improved environmental data management technologies; to enable all countries in the world to make use of GRID-compatible technology for national environmental assessment and management.
What products and services does GRID offer?
The following services can be provided through one or more GRID center. Provision of these services will depend on the availability of time, manpower and other resources at any given GRID center.
Digital data distribution
References to data
Information products
Project support
Where does GRID operate?
GRID consists of a network of cooperating centers, coordinated from a Program Activity Center at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and is supported through the UNEP Environment Fund, bilateral donors, individual national governments, and in-kind support from industry. The two UNEP funded centers are GRID-Nairobi and GRID-Geneva, with other centers established at cooperating institutions in Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Thailand, the USA and Western Samoa. Each of these centers is responsible for acquisition, management, and distribution of data in either a regional or thematic realm and undertakes decision support activities relevant to its regional or sectoral role. Many also support training, workshop, and technology transfer activities coordinated by appropriate international and regional bodies.
How does GRID work?
GRID is an element of the Environment Assessment Division of UNEP and operates within the framework of program element 5.4, "Environmental Information Services."
In its endeavor to accomplish its objectives, GRID maintains, through a system of cooperating centers, a distributed global archive of geo-referenced environmental data, in computer-accessible format acquired from many UN bodies, national agencies, sectoral specialists and nongovernmental organizations, and provides:
Geo-referenced and tabular data and GIS support to users world-wide, including support to other UNEP sub-programs and UN programs;
Meta-database and catalogue systems pointing to substantive environmental information;
Support to national GIS centers through regional environmental information networks.
Summarized information on activities at every GRID center is available from the GRID Annual Reports. The activities of GRID complement those of Infoterra and the ENRINs of the Assessment Division.
