As Donald Trump steps back into office, environmental advocates are sounding the alarm over the potential risks to critical datasets related to climate change and pollution. During his first term, Trump's administration was accused of suppressing or erasing environmental data, and now, advocates fear that the situation could worsen with proposed budget and staff cuts to federal agencies.

Researchers and advocates have been scrambling to save as much environmental data as possible, a skill they honed during Trump's first term. However, relying on outdated information has its pitfalls, and gaps in government data collection or maintenance could leave city planners and community groups with an incomplete picture of the risks posed by pollution and climate change in their area.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, EJScreen, is one key resource that could languish under the Trump administration. This tool helps urban planners, health and education professionals, and community advocates understand whether certain populations are disproportionately impacted by smog, toxic waste, or other hazards in a specific area. While the EPA is unlikely to abandon its air quality monitors anytime soon, Project 2025, a conservative roadmap for the second Trump administration, proposes eliminating the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which manages the tool.

Furthermore, the roadmap suggests reconsidering questions about race and ethnicity in the decennial census, which could lead to less accurate data and further marginalize certain communities. The proposal also calls for drastic staff cuts at federal agencies, including the EPA, which could compromise the collection and organization of environmental data.

In response to Trump's election in 2016, a grassroots effort to archive government data, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), was formed. EDGI organized "guerrilla archiving" events, enlisting hundreds of volunteers to help identify and save environmental datasets. They were able to archive 200 terabytes of data and content from government websites between the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017.

However, EDGI warns that Trump's team is likely better prepared now to limit access to information, and the threat to environmental data is greater this time around. "I think it's a much bigger threat this time around," says Gretchen Gehrke, EDGI cofounder and website monitoring program lead. "We may see massive data deletion, but we also might see just the deterioration of data because it's not being actively managed or becomes inaccessible."

Despite the challenges, EDGI and its partners are more prepared now, having teamed up with the End of Term Web Archive project to save content on federal government websites during every presidential transition. They have been collecting suggestions from partners for months and are better equipped to identify datasets to save.

The Biden administration had launched new web tools to provide information about climate change and its effects on extreme weather and public health, including Heat.gov to monitor heatwaves across the US and the Climate Mapping for Resilience & Adaptation (CMRA) website for a broader picture of disasters. However, with Trump's return to office, the future of these initiatives is uncertain.

For over 100 years, the Federal Depository Library Program has ensured that copies of government studies and documents are distributed to over 1,200 libraries across the US. This has historically served as a deterrent to any government attempting to erase information, as they would have to physically destroy all of those copies. However, with the shift to digital content, it is now easier for information to vanish if it is housed in a single website.

As Mark Phillips, an associate university librarian at the University of North Texas, notes, "We want to make sure that this work that was done for United States citizens is available … and that it can be used to further science, further policy. So that it doesn't go away and just become lost."

In conclusion, the environmental community is bracing for a potential onslaught on critical datasets and resources, and advocates are urging swift action to protect and preserve this vital information.