PAD-US Data History

This is a major update including:

• Full replacement of federal lands, developed with the FGDC Federal Lands Working Group ( https://cms.geoplatform.gov/a16govunits/FederalLands)
• Twenty PAD-US State Steward Network submissions: AK, AL, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IN, KS, KY, MS, NE, NC, NV, OK, OR, SC, TX, UT, WA and WY.
• The Nature Conservancy (TNC) owned lands.
• Conservation easements from the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED), suitable for distribution in the public domain.
• Trust for Public Land (TPL) contribution of local government areas in 13 States.
• National Marine Protected Areas (MPA) from the NOAA MPA Center.
• Conservation measures reviews (“GAP Status Code”, “IUCN Category”).
• Additional standardized “Designation Type” categories.
• New standardized “Manager Type” and “Manager Name” fields.
• Additional “Date of Establishment” for trends analyses (field in development)
• “Public Access” review by select PAD-US Stewards and federal partners.
• Available parcel data dissolved on PAD-US attributes to increase database performance.
• Many new standard layers to view and interpret PAD-US (Web Map Services coming soon).

Updates to 1.3 were generally focused on state lands, easements, marine protected areas and “Date of Establishment”. Specific changes include:

• A revised structure with four feature classes and associated attributes: marine protected areas, fee protection, conservation easements and a combined file that integrates all. GAP also developed an analysis file that eliminates the multiple overlaps
  (legitimate and boundary errors) that exist in protected areas data. Send requests to the PAD-US Coordinator
• State, local government and private protected area updates delivered from PAD-US State Data Stewards: CO (Colorado State University), FL (Florida Natural Areas Inventory), ID (Idaho Fish and Game), MA (The Commonwealth’s Office of Geographic Information Systems, MassGIS), MO (University of Missouri, MoRAP), MT (Montana Natural Heritage Program), NM (Natural Heritage New Mexico), OR (Oregon Natural Heritage Program), VA (Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Natural Heritage Program).GAP prioritized the development of a State Data Steward Network following the PAD-US Design Project and continues to invest accordingly. FY11 Data Stewards delivered seven state updates in September 2012 (WA, WY, UT, KY, NM, GA, MS) for integration into NCED and PAD-US v1.4 while FY12 Steward deliveries (NV, AZ, KS, OK, TX, IN, AL, NJ, AK) are expected September 2013.
• Integration of non-sensitive National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) easements through July 2012 with PAD-US version 1.2 easements. Duplicates have been removed. NCED and PAD-US are linked via Source UID in the PAD-US version 1.3 Easement feature class. Easements provided by PAD-US State Data Stewards are sent to NCED for UID assignment and integration.
• Select local government (i.e. county, city) protected areas aggregated by the Trust for Public Land (TPL) for their Conservation Almanac not previously available in the PAD-US Inventory.
• A new “Date of Establishment” field that identifies the year an area was designated or otherwise protected, attributed for 86% of GAP Status Code 1 and 2 protected areas. Additional dates will be provided in future updates.
• A national wilderness area update from wilderness.net
• The “Access” field that describes public access to protected areas as defined by data stewards or categorical assignment. The new “Access Source” field to document assignment methods. GAP plans to expand available recreation data in future updates.
• The transfer of conservation measures (i.e. GAP Status Codes, IUCN Categories) and documentation (i.e. GAP Code Source, GAP Code Date) from PAD-US version 1.2 where appropriate. GAP is meeting with UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC) to update the World Database for Protected Areas (WDPA, protectedplanet.net) with PAD-US version 1.3 in March 2013.
• Official (member and eligible) Marine Protected Areas (MPA) from the NOAA MPA Inventory (March 2011, www.mpa.gov) translated into the PAD-US schema with conservation measures transferred from PAD-US version 1.2 or categorically assigned to new protected areas in collaboration with NOAA and WCMC. GAP identified MPA records that overlap existing protected areas in the PAD-US Fee feature class (i.e. PADUS Overlap field in MPA feature class). For example, many National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks are also MPAs and are represented in both the PAD-US MPA and Fee feature classes.

• Protected areas and GAP Status Codes in the US Virgin Islands in collaboration with the US Forest Service staff at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry
• Pacific Islands (American Samoa, Guam, Palau, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia) protected areas and GAP Status Codes in collaboration with USGS staff from the Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum (PBIF).
• New protected areas and GAP Status Code review of Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) lands thanks to WDFW staff.
• Results of recommendations from the PAD-US Technical Team to reorganized and refined the Primary Designation Type field to improve database queries.

Updates to PADUS 1.2 were generally focused on federal and territorial lands. This update includes:

• National Park Service (NPS) parcel data and GAP Status Code review in partnership with NPS Lands and NPScape
• Official Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), documented in the current NOAA MPA Inventory (March 2010) as member or eligible MPAs for the National System of MPAs.
• National Department of Defense (DOD) lands update in partnership with DOD Partners in Flight
• National wilderness area updates signed into law in the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009 thanks to the Wilderness Institute
• Current BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) protected areas with special assistance from the BLM Division of Lands, Realty and Cadastral Survey

• Protected areas and GAP Status Codes in the US Virgin Islands in collaboration with the US Forest Service staff at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry
• Pacific Islands (American Samoa, Guam, Palau, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia) protected areas and GAP Status Codes in collaboration with USGS staff from the Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum (PBIF).
• New protected areas and GAP Status Code review of Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) lands thanks to WDFW staff.
• Results of recommendations from the PAD-US Technical Team to reorganized and refined the Primary Designation Type field to improve database queries.

Primary updates between PAD-US version 1 to 1.1 are:

• Complete updates (best available attributes, line work and conservation measures) in the northwest states of WA, OR, ID, WY, MT in partnership with the BLM and USFS.
• Complete CA update integrating CPAD (best available attributes, line work and conservation measures) into PAD-US in partnership with GreenInfo Network.
• Complete updates (best available attributes, line work and conservation measures) in the northeast states of ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, DE, PA, OH, WV, MD, VA in partnership with The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern Regional Office.
• Complete national update from The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Data Information Systems (CDIS) Unit including nature preserves and publically available conservation easements.
• A new core attribute schema with “Category” (Fee or Easement parcel), “Manager Name”, “Secondary Designation Name” and “Status” (Designated or Proposed site) to complement existing fields in PADUS version 1 such as “Owner Type”, “Owner Name” and “Primary Designation Type” developed with the PAD-US Technical Team.
• Updated IUCN Category conservation measures.

Original release of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) by GAP on behalf of the PAD-US Partnership to the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC). This was the first demonstration of the PAD-US Partnership that seeks to improve efficiency and leverage resources in protected areas data aggregation and maintenance. The geodatabase standardized regional GAP updates (southwest, southeast and middle US) with PAD-US Partner data in the northwest (Conservation Biology Institute) and northeast (The Nature Conservancy). GAP worked with WCMC to assign IUCN Categories to protected areas in PAD-US that meet the IUCN definition of protection 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”. Over 22,000 US protected areas were submitted to WCMC for inclusion in the World Database for Protected Areas (WDPA) available to view or download from: protectedplanet.net.