Impactful Datasets

Earth, Space, and Environmental sciences data are a World Heritage

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is celebrating and highlighting the many impactful datasets that support the broad spectrum of research, analysis, and decision making by our community. At this moment especially, the creation, stewardship, and use of these impactful datasets should be broadly recognized.

Impactful datasets are being recognized through nominination by those using the datasets and also a new special collection where you can submit a technical data paper to further highlight the dataset.

What does impactful mean?

An impactful dataset is not measured simply by usage or citation. Instead, we are interested in how the dataset is used to study and understand the impact of Earth, space, and environmental science on dimensions of people, planet, and prosperity. This includes research, policy making, analysis, activities around environmental disasters, and conservation - to name a few. These dimensions are described in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and further characterized in the recent Geosciences in Action report.

The dimensions of impact are intended to be broad. The description below interprets them for datasets and is intended to inspire.

People Dimension - Positive impact on Individuals: education, training, disaster response and prediction
Planet Dimension - Positive impact on physical systems: geophysical phenomena, conservation, climate, environmental indicators
Prosperity Dimension - Positive impact on socioeconomic systems: economic good, social equity, humanitarian relief, community resilience

The Special Collection

A commentary published in AGU Advances officially launches AGU’s new special collection of data papers called Impactful Datasets in Earth, Space, and Environmental Sciences, hosted by the journal Earth and Space Science. This special collection provides an opportunity to celebrate and highlight the people, methods, and ongoing dedication necessary to ensure the best possible data are available and ready for use.

The new special collection follows on the effort initiated in 2025 to encourage the AGU community to nominate impactful datasets. The idea was sparked by Joseph Gum, an atmospheric data expert, and co-developed with the Earth Science Information Partners community.

Research impact is commonly measured through the number of times a paper is cited by others. For datasets, measuring impact is multi-dimensional. Data are used for research, but also in everyday lives through apps on your phone, the decision to carry your umbrella, real time driving prompts, and changes to the costs of your insurance policy. We encourage dataset nominators to use the three sustainability dimensions of People, Planet and Prosperity. We welcome you to read the personal narratives describing all aspects of impactful dataset.

The Impactful Datasets in Earth, Space, and Environmental Sciences Special Collection invites those at the forefront of data stewardship to consider submitting a technical data paper inclusive of those who collected, curated, managed and used the impactful dataset.

Ways to be involved

Submit to the Special Collection
Nominate an Impactful Dataset
Read the Commentary