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Environmental Statistics: The Data-Driven Path to a Greener Career

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Discover how environmental statistics can help you turn data into action and make a lasting impact on the world around you.

[Featured Image]: A statistician specializing in environmental statistics leans on a table while reviewing data collected by an organization.

Key takeaways

Environmental statistics uses data to understand, predict, and manage environmental issues, such as pollution, water quality, and climate change. Here are some important things to know:

  • From 1980 to 2024, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US exceeded $1 billion in costs and damages [].

  • Environmental statistics come from data sources, such as surveys, administrative records, remote sensors, monitoring systems, and scientific research.听

  • You can use environmental statistics in environmental health careers in government, research, private industry, and non-profit organizations to make a large-scale impact.

Explore what environmental statistics are and how you can build a high-impact career that helps create data-driven solutions for a healthier planet. If you鈥檙e ready to start building public health and statistical skills, enroll in the Biostatistics in Public Health Specialization. You鈥檒l have the opportunity to interpret written and visual presentations of statistical data and learn how to choose the most appropriate statistical method to answer your research questions. You may even earn a career certificate to add to your professional portfolio.听

What is environmental statistics?

Environmental statistics refers to the application of statistics to study, monitor, and solve environmental problems. The field encompasses a wide range of topics, such as weather patterns, water and air quality, climate, soil health, and other projects that utilize environmental data. For example, you might examine the health impacts of air pollution, or assess global warming trends and the efficacy of different mitigation strategies over time.

In general, environmental statistics focus on a few core areas:

  • The current state of our environment.

  • How we depend on our environment.

  • Our impact on the environment.

  • How our environment impacts us

  • How we can best protect and manage our environment

By using a range of data sources and methods, we can identify trends, forecast future changes, and evaluate the effectiveness of environmental policies.听

Types of environmental statistics data sources

Professionals in this field often use data from surveys, administrative records, remote sensors, satellite images, and monitoring systems to make inferences about how environmental variables relate to each other and assess environmental trends. You will use each data source in slightly different ways.

Statistical surveys

Statistical surveys collect data tailored to specific environmental questions. Some surveys, like censuses, collect data from the entire population of interest. Others, like sample surveys, collect information from a representative portion of the population and adjust the results to represent the population.

You can collect a variety of information from surveys, from quantitative to qualitative data. For example, you might collect information related to household environmental costs, or you may explore how people think about climate change and why they hold certain beliefs.听

Administrative records

Environmental organizations, including government agencies, often keep administrative records that professionals can use to generate environmental statistics. These records are generally kept with the primary purpose of administering programs and providing services, rather than producing federal statistics.

However, because much of this information is publicly available, environmental professionals can use it to examine air and emissions, energy and environmental affairs, spatial modeling, recycling and waste trends, and more.

Remote sensors

Remote sensing involves using technology to collect information from a distance. Satellites, aircraft, ships, balloons, and spacecraft can all employ remote sensors to capture data and examine multiple aspects of it, such as measuring forest cover over time, investigating soil erosion, and monitoring changes in population estimates.听

Remote sensors make it possible to collect data in areas that are costly or dangerous to access, and often provide a more effective way to map global phenomena over time. The advent of remote sensors greatly enhanced our ability to collect data related to the atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial surfaces.

Monitoring systems

Monitoring systems collect and track environmental data over time, such as air pollution levels or water temperature. They can help us understand our current environmental conditions, detect changes early, identify and mitigate potential problems, and predict future trends.

This type of system often helps to keep communities safe. For example, a monitoring system could detect a sudden rise in air or water pollutants, indicating a malfunction at a nearby plant. Agencies can then work to identify the source and address any damages quickly.

Scientific research projects

Scientific research projects use environmental statistics to test hypotheses and draw conclusions about natural systems. These projects can have a broad range and examine everything from biodiversity and conservation to food webs or disease ecology.

Research projects range in scope and data source. For example, you might use large-scale data from government agencies to test your research question, or you might opt to use a smaller sample for a laboratory project. In some cases, you might even focus your research on assessing what is currently known鈥攁nd the gaps in knowledge鈥攐r on developing novel frameworks to help future research.

Why environmental statistics is a high-impact career

As our society focuses more specifically on learning about climate change and sustainable practices, working with environmental statistics offers a direct way to make a measurable difference. By applying data analysis to real-world environmental problems, you can help guide programs, policies, and sustainable development that impact millions of lives.听

Environmental statistics allows you to apply your skills to make an impact in a variety of public health and epidemiological areas, such as water contamination, coral reef preservation, carbon emissions, oil spills, and nuclear waste. Each project relies on statistical tools to identify trends, make projections, and inform evidence-based action.听

In environmental science, the scale of impact can be enormous. Rather than protecting individual lives, you will often work to protect entire communities, and even entire nations, making this a high-impact, rewarding career.

What does an environmental statistician do? + Key skills

Environmental statisticians apply relevant statistical methodology to environmental data sets to provide insights and inform decision-making. As an environmental statistician, you鈥檒l rely on a strong understanding of the mathematical and study design principles behind data collection, analysis, and reporting to ensure the accuracy and reliability of your models.听

While your exact job responsibilities will vary, you鈥檒l likely be tasked with:

  • Designing data collection methods to ensure accuracy and reliability

  • Processing raw data into structured, analyzable formats

  • Applying statistical methods, such as correlation, regression analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA)

  • Using relevant analytical software, such a SPSS, R, or Geographic Information Systems

  • Reporting data findings in several clear, accessible formats

  • Communicating insights to relevant stakeholders

In addition to statistical skills, your day-to-day tasks are likely to draw on workplace skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking to address complex problems in creative ways. Once you have run your models, you will use collaboration and communication skills to translate complex statistical results into meaningful environmental action.

What are examples of environmental data?

Environmental data encompasses a wide range of information, such as annual rainfall metrics, deforestation volume in a given year, air pollution values in a particular city, satellite imagery of the ocean, and so on. Environmental data can include temporal data, spatial data, multimedia data, as well as any information related to the environment and natural phenomena.

Who uses environmental statistics?

A variety of public and private industry professionals use environmental statistics to describe and disseminate environmental information. Policy, decision-makers, and members of the general public often use environmental indicators and aggregated statistics, while analysts, researchers, and other members of academia use more extensive and detailed data.听

As an environmental statistician, you might work in government, non-profit, private consulting, or academia, depending on your area of expertise. While exact statistical methods and data will vary, your role in each will likely hinge on solving complex and important environmental problems.

How does environmental health affect the US population statistically?

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 403 weather and climate disasters in the US between 1980 and 2024 exceeded $1 billion in damages, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that air pollution contributes to over 100,000 premature deaths each year [,]. While the data is striking, it points to the importance of action in environmental fields. With the right data, we can inform policies and create initiatives that reduce risks and create a safer, more sustainable future.

Getting started in environmental statistics听

Typically, the foundation of your training in environmental statistics will focus heavily on learning statistical methods, which you can then apply to your area of specialization. This advanced knowledge of statistics provides the technical foundation you need to build involved statistical models and work with complex data, ensuring accurate, data-driven decisions.听

When starting, consider exploring multiple statistical methods, such as:

  • Correlation coefficients

  • Regression analyses

  • Time-series analyses

  • Spatial analyses

  • ANOVAs

Once you build these skills, you鈥檒l combine them with subject matter expertise in environmental health areas, such as toxicology or health policy, to design and interpret your models.

Learn more: Regressing Meaning: Definition, Examples, Uses

Explore our resources for environmental professionals

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Article sources

1.听

National Centers for Environmental Information. 鈥, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/.鈥 Accessed October 14, 2025.

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