RasterDataSources.jl

June 21, 2026 · View on GitHub

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RasterDataSources downloads raster data for local use or for integration into other spatial data packages, like Rasters.jl. The collection is largely focussed on datasets relevant to ecology, but will have a lot of crossover with other sciences.

Currently sources include:

SourceURLStatus
CHELSAhttps://chelsa-climate.orgBioClim, BioClimPlus, and Climate
WorldClimhttps://www.worldclim.orgClimate, Weather, BioClim, and Elevation
EarthEnvhttp://www.earthenv.orgLandCover and HabitatHeterogeneity
AWAPhttp://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/index.jspComplete
ALWBhttp://www.bom.gov.au/water/landscape/Complete
ERA5https://registry.opendata.aws/nsf-ncar-era5/Complete
SRTMhttps://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/Complete
CopernicusDEMhttps://registry.opendata.aws/copernicus-dem/GLO-30 (30m) and GLO-90 (90m)
MODIShttps://modis.ornl.govComplete (beta)
TerraClimatehttps://www.climatologylab.org/terraclimate.htmlHistorical, Plus2C, Plus4C
NCEPhttps://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.htmlComplete
SLGAhttps://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/index.htmlSoil attributes and CoarseFragments
GADShttps://zenodo.org/records/19246341Spectral aerosol optical depths
CRUCL2https://zenodo.org/records/20754689Monthly mean climate 1961–1990
CPCSoilhttps://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.cpcsoil.htmlLTM climatology and historical monthly means

Please open an issue if you need more datasets added, or (even better) open a pull request following the form of the other datasets where possible.

Retrieving data

Usage is generally via the getraster method - which will download the raster data source if it isn't available locally, or simply return the path/s of the raster file/s:

julia> using RasterDataSources

julia> getraster(WorldClim{Climate}, :wind; month=1:12)
12-element Array{String,1}:
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_01.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_02.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_03.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_04.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_05.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_06.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_07.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_08.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_09.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_10.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_11.tif"
 "/home/user/Data/WorldClim/Climate/wind/wc2.1_10m_wind_12.tif"

Installation and setup

Install as usual with:

] add RasterDataSources

To download data you will need to specify a folder to put it in. You can do this by assigning the environment variable RASTERDATASOURCES_PATH:

ENV["RASTERDATASOURCES_PATH"] = "/home/user/Data/"

This can be put in your startup.jl file or the system environment.

RasterDataSources was based on code from the SimpleSDMDataSoures.jl package by Timothée Poisot.