Skip to main content

Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 3.0 (ver. 2.0, March 2023)

Dates

Publication Date
Start Date
2005
End Date
2022
Release Date
2022-07-05
Revision
2023-03-20

Citation

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Gap Analysis Project (GAP), 2022, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 3.0 (ver. 2.0, March 2023): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9Q9LQ4B.

Summary

The USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is the nation's inventory of protected areas, including public land and voluntarily provided private protected areas, identified as an A-16 National Geospatial Data Asset in the Cadastre Theme ( https://ngda-cadastre-geoplatform.hub.arcgis.com/ ). The PAD-US is an ongoing project with several published versions of a spatial database including areas dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity, and other natural (including extraction), recreational, or cultural uses, managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. The database was originally designed to support biodiversity assessments; however, its scope expanded in recent years to include all [...]

Child Items (3)

Contacts

Attached Files

Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.


“PAD-US 3.0 File Geodatabase Download Package”
1.08 GB application/zip

“PAD-US 3.0 Geopackage Download Package”
1.94 GB application/zip
PAD-US3_0_ProcessingSteps.zip
“Processing Steps 1 through 10 for PAD-US 3.0”
593 MB application/zip
VersHist-PAD-US.txt 23.84 KB text/plain

Purpose

The PAD-US geodatabase was originally developed to organize and assess the management status (i.e. apply 'GAP Status Code') of elements of biodiversity protection by identifying species and plant communities not adequately represented in existing conservation lands ( https://www.usgs.gov/programs/gap-analysis-project ). In cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), PAD-US also supports global conservation analyses to inform policy decisions ( https://www.protectedplanet.net/country/USA , https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/resources/global-reports ). The dataset is robust and has been expanded in recent years with major additions of local parks data to PAD-US 2.1, to support the recreation, natural resource management, wildfire planning, emergency management, transportation, research, and public health communities. New applications of the data are frequently discovered. Multiple attributes and a flexible database structure provide context for data to be used at local, regional, state, national, and international scales. See https://www.usgs.gov/programs/gap-analysis-project/science/protected-areas-resources for more information.

Rights

Public Domain. Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data for other purposes, nor on all computer systems, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty.

Map

Communities

  • USGS Data Release Products

Associated Items

Tags

Harvest Set
Theme
Place

Provenance

Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 3.0 (ver. 2.0, March 2023) completed by the Protected Areas Database of the Unites States Team/Gap Analysis Project/Science Analytics and Synthesis/Core Science Systems on March 20, 2023. To review the changes that were made, see “VersHist-PAD-US.txt” in the attached files section.

Additional Information

Identifiers

Type Scheme Key
DOI https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier doi:10.5066/P9Q9LQ4B

Item Actions

View Item as ...

Save Item as ...

View Item...