The USGS Gap Analysis Program maintains three primary data sets – land cover, species and protected areas.
LAND COVER
The USGS GAP Land Cover Data Set includes detailed vegetation and land use patterns for the continental United States. The data set incorporates the Ecological System classification system developed by NatureServe to represent natural and semi-natural land cover. The 590 land use classes in the data set can be displayed at three levels of detail, from general (8 classes) to most detailed. The Land Cover Data Set can be used to identify those places in the country with sufficient good quality habitat to support wildlife, a key step in developing sound conservation plans. Learn more about Land Cover Data Set >>
PROTECTED AREAS
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is a national geodatabase, created by USGS GAP, that represents public land ownership and conservation lands, including voluntarily provided privately protected areas, for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The lands included in PAD-US are assigned conservation status codes that both denote the level of biodiversity preservation and indicate other natural, recreational and cultural uses. The most recent version of PAD-US is 1.2, published in April 2011. Learn more about PAD-US >>
SPECIES
GAP is delineating species range and predicted distribution maps for more than 2,000 species that occur within the continental US as well as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We will make these maps and datasets available as they are completed. Our goal is to build species range maps and distribution models with the best available data for assessing conservation status, conservation planning, and research (e.g., climate change impacts). These ranges and models represent a base on which we will build upon as new data become available. Learn more about Species Data >>
ANCILLARY DATA
Ancillay data sets such as elevation, hydrography, and forest interior data were developed to support the species modeling effort. To obtain all ancillary data for the entire U.S. click here. File size: 21 Gb. (Note: Data are divided up by species modeling regions. You will need 7zip to decompress the file.) To Explore and Download Regional Ancillary Data go to the species data download pages.
OTHER DATA, INCLUDING AQUATIC GAP
GAP datasets for earlier state and regional projects are also available. Generally it is advisable to use the most current national data, but we maintain archives of the earlier data so that researchers may access it easily. Learn more about other GAP data sets >>
Access Web Services
All GAP datasets are available as web services. Go to our Web Services page to access them.