Content last reviewed:
Key Environmental reference sources
- Cambridge companion to environmental humanities
- Companion to environmental studies
- Dictionary of environment and conservation
- Encyclopedia of ecotourism
- Encyclopedia of sustainable management
- Environmental encyclopedia
- Historical dictionary of the Inuit
- Indigenous peoples: an encyclopedia of culture, history and threats to survival
- International encyclopedia of human geography
- Oxford companion to global change
Books
Search Omni, the library's main discovery tool:
to find books:
- find books
- Remember to login first if you are searching from 'off campus'
to find journal articles:
If you need more help? Try Omni Search Tips
- Try browsing the contents of individual journals to become familiar with the topics and themes. For help with this, view the Journal Searching feature in Omni.
Databases tagged for Environmental Studies
Start here:
- Canadian Business & Current Affairs - contains significant Canadian content
- Environment Index - contains citations to scientific, technical and popular journal articles
- GEOBASE - comprehensive coverage of all topics in geography, both human and physical
- Scopus - multidisciplinary coverage of all topics, half originating from Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific
- Web of Science - multidisciplinary coverage of literature in the sciences, social sciences and humanities
Google Scholar - is a large search engine and must be searched via the library's web site in order to access the library's online content. It provides links to full-text articles to which the Library subscribes, and provides access to free articles from publisher's web sites.
Recommended Journals:
- Community Development Journal
- Empowering sustainability international journal
- Energy, sustainability and society
- Environment and Society
- International journal of development and sustainability
- Journal of innovations and sustainability
- Journal of political ecology
- Local Environment
- Environment and Planning: Nature and Space
- Sustainable Futures
- Sustainability
- Sustainability Science
Identify the main concepts of your research topic and brainstorm possible keywords.
Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine concepts and enhance your search
- Use AND to narrow your search
- Use OR to connect synonyms and expanding your search
- Use NOT to eliminate a word, ie: cloning NOT sheep
Use Brackets to group synonyms together, ie: (GMO OR genetically modified organisms OR biogenetics)
Use Quotation Marks for phrase searching, ie: "satellite imagery"
Use Truncation to broaden your search. The asterisk * at the end of a root word will search various word endings.
- Example: "pollut*" finds "pollute", "pollutes", "pollution", "polluter", "polluted", "polluting", "pollutant", "pollutants"
Use Wildcards to broaden your search to include words with different spellings
- minerali?ation = mineralisation, mineralization
- wom#n = woman, women
- colo*r = colour, color
Note: Many databases now provide automatic truncation, seamlessly searching for alternate spellings. When this is the case, using your own truncation overrides the system. Try a search first and then use truncation if needed.
Atlases
- Atlas of ecosystem services; drivers, risks and societal responses
- Atlas of sustainable development goals 2018: from world development indicators
- EJAtlas (environmental justice)
- Indigenous Peoples atlas of Canada
- North American environmental atlas
- World Atlas of sustainable development
Maps
- Find Maps (web page)
- Map Resources (web page)
- Agroecology Map - Friends of the Earth International
- Mapping Indigenous knowledge in the digital age (book)
Canada
- Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
- Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment
- Environment and Climate Change Canada
- Natural Resources Canada
International
- IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature
- OECD
- United Nations Environment Programme
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Useful web sites
Writing:
- Communicating in geography and environmental sciences e-book
- Doing your undergraduate project e-book
- Writing an Annotated Bibliography
- Writing Services offers students help with learning the mechanics of academic writing
Citing:
- Citing your sources - includes basic instructions for all styles
- OWL Purdue Online Writing lab for APA
Referencing your sources is an important part of academic writing. Why?
- it lets you acknowledge the ideas or words of others if you use them in your work
- it helps you to avoid plagiarism
- it demonstrates that you are using the scholarly record and that you can provide authority for statements you make in your term paper
- it enables readers to find the source information
