This big data revolution, which encompasses techniques to capture, process, analyse and visualize large datasets in a rapid timeframe, has led to an explosion in data variety over the last five decades. Significant advances in data growth in the bio-geophysical sciences have allowed scientists to discover, analyse and understand environmental changes at micro to global scales, and separate out what is human-driven. As a consequence, the state and trends of the environment is increasingly becoming a focus of big data applications. Here, we discuss the trends emerging from these environmental analyses (including the derived data products) and propose a way forward to harness these technologies to mitigate global environmental declines.