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.
National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) -- Core Science Analytics and Synthesis
USGS Core Sciences Analytics and Synthesis
News
New PAD-US Data Release – version 1.3, November 2012
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!
GAP Data featured in ‘App-lifying USGS Earth Science Data’ on Challenge.gov
The USGS is challenging the Nation’s developers to use Federal earth science data in new ways. We are seeking new visualizations and applications for datasets that could address some of today’s perplexing scientific challenges. National GAP data were chosen as one of these datasets.
GAP Map appears in ESRI “Mapping the Nation” publication
Redundancy of Ecological Systems in Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) provide a national framework for making decisions at landscape scales. Using the LCC framework and GIS, GAP measured and analyzed the redundancy of ecological systems and helped reassess conservation priorities across the nation. The map appeared in ESRI’s 2012 “Mapping the Nation”.
Mapping the Nation: Government and Technology Making a Difference is a collection of GIS maps illustrating the many ways that federal government agencies rely on GIS analysis to help make the world a better place. Pulled from a broad range of agencies, maps included in the book demonstrate how the technology can be used to evaluate and respond to social, economic, and environmental concerns at local, regional, national, and global levels.
GAP Landcover Viewer Updated
GAP updated national land cover data set (version 2) has been updated and crosswalked to the five highest levels of the National Vegetation Classification System. This land cover data provides detailed information on the vegetation of the United States and enables data users to make conservation or land use planning decisions for the entire range of a habitat type across administrative boundaries.
This data set can be explored at multiple levels of detail with GAPs updated landcover viewer.
The GAP land cover viewer allows online inspection of detailed data and access to downloads.
GAP Supports America’s Great Outdoors Initiative
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.
Species Viewer Receives Award
GAP’s recently launched Species Viewer placed third in the category of Web-based GIS Applications at ESRI’s User Software Applications Fair in July, 2011. The viewer currently has more than 800 vertebrate species ranges and 260 distribution models. With more than 2000 species being modeled, new ranges and distribution models are being added daily. The web viewer was presented in conjunction with a talk given by Adam Radel and Jeff Lonneker titled “Access to National Conservation Databases via the Web.”
IUCN Definitions
A summary of the relationship between GAP Status Codes and IUCN Definitions
This is not a crosswalk between IUCN Categories and GAP Status Codes, but it helps summarize their definitions and relationship. Only GAP Status Codes 1 and 2 meet the definition of protected by IUCN as, “A clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”.
GAP Status Code 3 and 4 lands cannot be assigned an IUCN Category. While IUCN Ia, Ib, II are more likely to be GAP 1, many of these areas cannot permit natural disturbance events to persist and are GAP 2. Similarly, there are many IUCN Category III, IV and V protected areas that are managed as GAP 1. USGS GAP maintains an approved crosswalk to assign IUCN Categories to US protected areas based upon their management designation, landowner, GAP Status Code and size. Contact Lisa Duarte (208-885-3013) for the most current version.
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GAP data used to assess protection levels of Southern Forests
Conservation status of the southern forests in the United States
Southern Forests for the Future works to raise awareness about the status and importance of the United States. The organization used GAP data to analyze Southern Forests and portray information about them in an online interactive map.
Researchers reported that the southern United States currently contains approximately 39.5 million acres of protected areas—many of them forested—distributed throughout the region. The majority of protected areas in the South are federally owned, while the rest are owned by state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, or private citizens. The federal government owns approximately 29.8 million acres, including 12.9 million acres in national forests, 5.4 million acres in national parks, and 3.8 million acres in wildlife refuges. The 13 southern states combined own approximately 3.6 million acres of state forests and 1.7 million acres of state parks. Approximately 12.8 percent of southern forests are currently located within these protected areas with 1.1 percent under status 1 protection, 3.8 percent under status 2, and 7.9 percent under status 3.
More Information
NPScape helps National Parks understand their conservation context using PAD-US
NPScape is working with Saguaro National Park and the NPS Sonoran Desert Inventory and Monitoring Network on a project to evaluate the environmental drivers, natural systems, and conservation context of the Park. NPScape conservation status measures derived from PAD-US have helped Saguaro visualize and understand surrounding land ownership and land management over multiple spatial extents.
NPScape is a landscape dynamics monitoring project that produces and delivers to US National Parks a suite of landscape-scale datasets, maps, reports, and other products to inform natural resource management and planning at local, regional, and national scales. Changes in the composition and configuration of different land cover types within and adjacent to parks have been shown to greatly affect biological and physical processes, including habitat availability, animal movements, potential for invasion by exotic plants, water quality, and in-stream habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms. Information about changes and trends in landscape-scale indicators in and around parks can help park managers anticipate, plan for, and manage associated effects to park resources.
To provide parks with the best available information regarding land ownership and land management, NPScape partnered with GAP and organized a review of conservation measures (i.e. GAP Status Codes) for approximately 300 natural resource parks across the US. While incorporating these review comments into PAD-US version 1.2, GAP also updated park boundaries from the National Park Service (NPS) Land Resources Division and NPS Wilderness Areas from Wilderness.net.
NPScape delivered these new PAD-US conservation status measures along with other important landscape dynamics measures related to population, housing, roads, land cover, and landscape pattern. Combined, these measures are now being used to evaluate the environmental drivers, natural systems, and conservation context of parks. GAP appreciates any opportunity to update and apply PAD-US with federal partners.
More information:
Visit the NPScape website
Contact Bill Monahan
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
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Page Last Modified: September 18, 2012