Protected Areas Database of the United States v. 2.0 (PAD-US 2.0) Flat Vector Analysis File

******These data are preliminary or provisional and are subject to revision. They are being provided to meet the need for timely best science. The data have not received final approval by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and are provided on the condition that neither the USGS nor the U.S. Government shall be held liable for any damages resulting from the authorized or unauthorized use of the data.

This summary of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) was created to provide land managers and decision makers with a general summary of management for biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, and recreation access. The PAD-US 2.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class was modified to remove overlaps, avoiding overestimation in protected area statistic summaries and support user needs. A Python scripted process prioritized overlapping designations (for example, Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their relative biodiversity conservation (for example, GAP Status Code 1 areas remain on top) and public access values. Boundaries of interest to stakeholders (DOI Region, Landscape Conservation Cooperative,  EcoRegions, Hydrologic Unit Code 12, State, Congressional District, County, City) were incorporated to support data summaries and are included in the "Attached Files" section below. In addition a "Flattened" version of the PAD-US 2.0 combined file is available without these boundaries to enable users to integrate boundaries of interest.

Users should note, the PAD-US inventory is mostly complete for federal and state lands but only about half of local government and nonprofit areas are currently available. Initiatives are underway to complete the inventory by 2020; however, additional partners are needed. In addition, increases in protected area status between versions of PAD-US may be attributed more to improving the completeness and accuracy of the spatial data than due to actual management actions. USGS provides no legal warranty for the use of this data. While PAD-US is the official aggregation of protected areas, a National Geospatial Data Asset, agencies are the best and official source of their lands data.