Environmental data

Environmental data APIs

Finnish Environment Institute provides public environmental information through open interfaces, for example, about lakes, water quality, hydrology, and aquatic organisms. Below are more detailed information.

OData interfaces

Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) provides open interfaces to public environmental data such as water quality, hydrology, algal bloom etc. REST (REST = REpresentational State Transfer) data service can be used to retrieve data by making OData requests. To learn more about the Open data protocol, please check odata.org.

If you produce an application using these interfaces, please inform us with an e-mail to the address herttapaivystajat@syke.fi , for your application to be presented as an example .  

RSS feed about changes in interfaces for environmental data (in Finnish):

Directory

The directory interface provides general indexes, lists and other attribute information on data that is referred to from other interfaces (e.g. municipals, water bodies, ELY centers, Water management areas and analytes and determination codes used in laboratory analyses).

Hydrology

The interface for Hydrology provides spatial and temporal information on water resources (observations or calculated values) in Finland. Observations include elements of hydrologic cycle (precipitation, evaporation, runoff and discharge), water level and other hydrological phenomena (water equivalent of snow cover, ice thickness, water temperature, etc.). The observed or calculated values for approximately 5,000 stations or areas are provided.

Päivityshistoria

  • Version 1.1
    29.8.2019 Added list of elevation systems used (Korkeustaso) and information required for site-to-site conversion (VedenkTasoTieto).
  • Version 1.0
    15.12.2015 First version released
Phytoplankton

The Phytoplankton interface contains data of quantitative phytoplankton monitoring surveys covering Finland's inland waters and the areas of the North baltic and Gulf of bothnia. The material is presented according to the Darwin core definition.

In addition, observations of dominant algal species from samples submitted in connection with public announcements of algal blooms are available through the interface.

Päivityshistoria 

  • Version 1.1 
    27.1.2022 Added quantitative phytoplankton monitoring data (presented according to Darwin core definition).
  • Version 1.0 
    17.2.2016 First version released
Benthos

The benthic macrofauna interface contains mainly data on the occurrence and abundance of benthic macrofauna species collected in environmental monitoring and statutory monitoring of Finnish lakes, rivers and coastal areas, as well as the Baltic sea. The material is presented according to the Darwin core definition.

Seawater quality in BED (BNI) format

The interface contains results of physical and chemical analyses from the Baltic sea for the Baltic environmental database (BED) of the Baltic nest institute (BNI): http://www.balticnest.org/bed and http://nest.su.se/dataPortal/. The units used are µmol/l in nutrients and ml/l in oxygen.

Water quality of surface waters

The interface provides results of physical and chemical analyses from the water samples of surface waters of lakes and rivers in Finland and also from the Baltic sea.

Päivityshistoria

Version 2.0
18.9.2019 Added Site_Wide.WaterbodyType and Site_Wide.WaterbodyType_Id, which include the waterbody type (in Finnish) and the corresponding ID number. In addition, the performance of Result_Wide was improved.
6.9.2016 Added station type, which categorizes sites into manual sampling stations and auto metering stations. A typo in Result_Wide.Determination_Id has been fixed. The data types have the following changes: Determination.Determination_id Int16 -> Int32 and Haju.Haju_Id String -> Int32. The previously used key has been moved to the Lyhenne (Abbreviation) field.


Version 1.0
15.12.2015 the first version released has been disabled

Interface for groundwater transfer batches

The interface for groundwater transfer batches includes all key database tables which are aid in creating transfer batches. The database tables are presented on the front page of the interface.

Basic Data Repository of Water Bodies

The data repository VesiPetoDW of the Basic data eepository of water bodies contains physiographic and hierarchical basic information related to water bodies, which can be linked to the Ranta10 spatial data set using a unique identifier. The repository contains information on over 200,000 lakes, over 42,000 streams, and over 400 marine areas. The repository will later also include information on the new catchment area division and its various hierarchical levels.

Lakes

The lake interface contains information about lakes (area over 1 ha) in Finland. There is information about location, physiographic characteristics, water level control and so on, for example lake name, location coordinates (ETRS-TM35FIN), general height level, waterbed area, length of the shoreline, maximum depth and volume in typical water level.

Water Supply Information System (VEETI) – Open Interface

The Water supply information system (VEETI) has been collecting data on water supply and sewerage since 2016.

The Water supply information system is based on the Water services act, so its use is not optional. If a water utility has a service area confirmed by the municipality, the VEETI information system must be adopted. The use of VEETI also applies to wholesale water utilities and wastewater treatment plants.

Non-restricted content from the open interface of the VEETI system is available. Restricted content includes all information related to individuals and geographic data.

Climatediet

The calculation API for the climatediet.fi-service allows you to estimate greenhouse gas emissions caused by daily habits and choices. The interface offers information about housing and energy, transport, food, consumption and waste management emissions.

Published 24.9.2024 / Updated 31.1.2025