Protected Areas Database of the United States

New PAD-US Data Release – version 1.3, November 2012

bioadmin — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:56:18 +0000

USGS GAP has published a new version of PAD-US. Version 1.3 was completed in November 2012 and is now available for download. New features are described on the Data/History page.

Get your data now! Go to the data download page!

FY12 State Data Steward Project Awards Grants

bioadmin — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:59:49 +0000

GAP awarded FY12 State Data Steward Project grants to nine states (NV, AZ, KS, OK, TX, IN, AL, NJ, AK) to improve data sharing capacity in the state, build data inventories, and increase the efficiency of PAD-US updates. Work begins October 1, 2012 with a project orientation webinar and Standard Manual review. Final geodatabase deliveries are expected September 30, 2013.

GAP Supports America’s Great Outdoors Initiative

gapadmin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:44:06 +0000

: GAP created base maps showing the states (including Montana, illustrated here), main cities, some of the primary roads to orient people, and protected areas and national forests, Indian reservations, Department of Defense lands, Bureau of Land Management lands, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, and so forth.

From April through July 2011, Secretary Salazar and senior DOI officials visited governors and other high-ranking state resource staff throughout the nation to discuss President Obama’s Americas Great Outdoors (AGO) Initiative. The Secretary’s briefing materials included USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) maps illustrating each state’s federal and state land ownership boundaries.
GAP maps used by the Secretary and his team were created using GAP’s Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) and Species Distribution Database. This is all in keeping with the GAP objective of identifying gaps in the biological diversity in the present network of conservation areas across the country.

To learn more, read the entire article in the USGS @Access Fall 2011 issue.

Florida

gapadmin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:54:37 +0000

The Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI), a non-profit organization administered by Florida State University is the central conservation lands data repository for the state of Florida and serves as the PAD-US State Data Steward. Florida currently has over 11 million acres in conservation. Data describing the over 2,000 properties that compose this acreage are stored in FNAI’s Conservation Lands Database. The database is constantly refined and updated by our Conservation Lands Biologist using data acquired directly from the land managing agencies and is provided to the public on a quarterly basis.

FY11 State Data Steward Project makes Grants

gapadmin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:24:04 +0000

Existing network of PAD-US data stewards

GAP awards FY11 State Data Steward Project grants to seven states (GA, KY, MS, NC, UT, WA, WY) to improve data sharing capacity, build state data inventories and increase PAD-US update efficiency.

Learn more:

PAD-US provides terrestrial protected area map and statistics for NOAA’s State of the Coast Series, The Gulf of Mexico at a Glance: A Second Glance.

gapadmin — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:14:03 +0000

The Gulf of Mexico at a Glance: A Second Glance report used GAP PAD-US data.

To highlight the national importance of our coasts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed the State of the Coast (SOTC) web site that will foster increased awareness of the crucial importance of healthy coastal ecosystems to a robust U.S. economy, a safe population, and a sustainable quality of life for coastal residents. A product of the NOAA State of the Coast Report Series, the Gulf of Mexico at a Glance: A Second Glance highlights what we know about the Gulf region’s coastal communities, coastal economy, and coastal ecosystems, and how climate change might impact the Gulf coast. The report is an update to the original Gulf of Mexico at a Glance, published in June 2008, and is organized by the following interconnected themes: Communities, Economy, and Ecosystems.
Protected areas are described as areas in Gulf Coast Counties and Gulf of Mexico waters with widely variable purposes, legal authorities, managing agencies and levels of protection provided. They are meant to provide greater protection for natural or cultural resources within a specific geographic area. The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US), managed by the USGS Gap Analysis Program at the University of Idaho, provided NOAA with a aggregated geodatabase of all known land based protected areas in the region to compliment NOAA’s Marine Protected Areas Inventory. Figures 42, 43 and 44 clearly illustrate the locations of Land and Marine Protected Areas within the Gulf Coast Region and summarize the management, protection level and conservation focus of these protected areas.

Learn More: Read the report.

Citation: National Ocean Service, NOAA. 2011. The Gulf of Mexico at a Glance: A Second Glance. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce.

Contact: Kristen Crossett (Kristen.Crossett(at)noaa.gov)

Download State Protected Areas Maps

gapadmin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:25:18 +0000

Sample map showing the protected areas of Colorado

GAP now provides links to download state protected areas maps.

Get your map here:

Data Translation Tools

jmaxwell — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:54:40 +0000

Example scripts and a helpful tutorial that can be used to translate your data into the PAD-US schema.

The PAD-US Conversion Tools are available for Arc9.3 or Arc10 users, along with a user friendly Excel Crosswalk table (Conversion.xlsx) and tutorial (PADUS_ETL.docx). The scripts were developed to translate state data from one or multiple feature classes/shapefiles into one PAD-US feature class. They can be edited and used for non-state data.

To translate one feature class into the PAD-US Schema:
ftp://ftp.gap.uidaho.edu/outgoing/Lisa/States/Example_PADUS_FlatFile_ETL.zip

To translate multiple features classes into the PAD-US Schema:
ftp://ftp.gap.uidaho.edu/outgoing/Lisa/States/multi_feature_Example_PADUS_ETL.zip

No password is required.

Contact Mason Croft at mcroft@uidaho.edu with questions or suggested edits.

Virginia

jmaxwell — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:42:11 +0000

Shenandoah Falls, Virginia

The Virginia Dept. of Conservation and Recreation maintains the state’s Conservation Lands Database, which includes protected areas data for federal, state and regional agencies and organizations, and also includes significant easement holdings.

Montana

jmaxwell — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:41:01 +0000

Easement data (along with all other protected lands information) is fully available in this state, where public data access to it is required by law. The state’s Land Stewardship data center has many good resources, along with download links.