Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 3.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class in the full geodatabase inventory (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to prioritize overlapping designations, avoiding massive overestimation in protected area statistics, and simplified by the following PAD-US attributes to support user needs for raster analysis data: Manager Type, Manager Name, Designation Type, GAP Status Code, Public Access, and State Name. The rasterization process (see processing steps below) prioritized overlapping designations previously identified (GAP_Prity field) in the Vector Analysis File (e.g. Wilderness within a Natio ...

Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 4.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class in the full geodatabase inventory (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to prioritize overlapping designations, avoiding massive overestimation in protected area statistics, and simplified by the following PAD-US attributes to support user needs for raster analysis data: Manager Type, Manager Name, Designation Type, GAP Status Code, Public Access, and State Name. The rasterization process prioritized overlapping designations previously identified (GAP_Prity field) in the Vector Analysis file (e.g. Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their ...

Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 3.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class in the full geodatabase inventory (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to prioritize overlapping designations, avoiding massive overestimation in protected area statistics, and simplified by the following PAD-US attributes to support user needs for raster analysis data: Manager Type, Manager Name, Designation Type, GAP Status Code, Public Access, and State Name. The rasterization process (see processing steps below) prioritized overlapping designations previously identified (GAP_Prity field) in the Vector Analysis File (e.g. Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their relative biodiversity conservation (e.g. GAP Status Code 1 over 2). The 30-meter Image (IMG) grid Raster Analysis Files area extents were defined by the Census state boundary file used to clip the Vector Analysis File, the data source for rasterization ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysis_State_Clip_CENSUS2020" feature class from ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFileOtherExtents_Clip_Census.gdb"). Alaska (AK) and Hawaii (HI) raster data are separated from the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) to facilitate analyses at manageable scales. Note, the PAD-US inventory is now considered functionally complete with the vast majority of land protection types (with a legal protection mechanism) represented in some manner, while work continues to maintain updates, improve data quality, and integrate new data as it becomes available (see inventory completeness estimates at: http://www.protectedlands.net/data-stewards/ ). In addition, protection status represents a point-in-time and changes in status between versions of PAD-US may be attributed to improving the completeness and accuracy of the spatial data more than actual management actions or new acquisitions. USGS provides no legal warranty for the use of this data. While PAD-US is the official aggregation of protected areas ( https://www.fgdc.gov/ngda-reports/NGDA_Datasets.html ), agencies are the best source of their lands data.

Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 4.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class in the full geodatabase inventory (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to prioritize overlapping designations, avoiding massive overestimation in protected area statistics, and simplified by the following PAD-US attributes to support user needs for raster analysis data: Manager Type, Manager Name, Designation Type, GAP Status Code, Public Access, and State Name. The rasterization process prioritized overlapping designations previously identified (GAP_Prity field) in the Vector Analysis file (e.g. Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their relative biodiversity conservation (e.g. GAP Status Code 1 over 2).The 30-meter Image (IMG) grid Raster Analysis Files area extents were defined by the Census state boundary file used to clip the Vector Analysis File, the data source for rasterization ("PADUS4_0VectorAnalysis_State_Clip_CENSUS2022") feature class from ("PADUS4_0VectorAnalysisFile_OtherExtents_ClipCENSUS2022.gdb"). Alaska (AK) and Hawaii (HI) raster data are separated from the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) to facilitate analyses at manageable scales. Note, the PAD-US inventory is now considered functionally complete with the vast majority of land protection types (with a legal protection mechanism) represented in some manner, while work continues to maintain updates, improve data quality, and integrate new data as it becomes available (see inventory completeness estimates at: http://www.protectedlands.net/data-stewards/ ). In addition, protection status represents a point-in-time and changes in status between versions of PAD-US may be attributed to improving the completeness and accuracy of the spatial data more than actual management actions or new acquisitions. USGS provides no legal warranty for the use of this data. While PAD-US is the official aggregation of protected areas ( https://ngda-portfolio-community-geoplatform.hub.arcgis.com/pages/portfolio ), agencies are the best source of their lands data.

Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 4.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to remove overlaps, avoiding overestimation in protected area statistics and to support user needs. A Python scripted process ("PADUS4_0_VectorAnalysis_Script_Python3.zip") associated with this data release prioritized overlapping designations (e.g. Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their relative biodiversity conservation status (e.g. GAP Status Code 1 over 2), public access values (in the order of Closed, Restricted, Open, Unknown), and geodatabase load order (records are deliberately organized in ...

Spatial analysis and statistical summaries of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) provide land managers and decision makers with a general assessment of management intent for biodiversity protection, natural resource management, and recreation access across the nation. The PAD-US 3.0 Combined Fee, Designation, Easement feature class (with Military Lands and Tribal Areas from the Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries feature class) was modified to remove overlaps, avoiding overestimation in protected area statistics and to support user needs. A Python scripted process ("PADUS3_0_CreateVectorAnalysisFileScript.zip") associated with this data release prioritized overlapping designations (e.g. Wilderness within a National Forest) based upon their relative biodiversity conservation status (e.g. GAP Status Code 1 over 2), public access values (in the order of Closed, Restricted, Open, Unknown), and geodatabase load order (records are deliberately organized in the PAD-US full inventory with fee owned lands loaded before overlapping management designations, and easements). The Vector Analysis File ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFile_ClipCensus.zip") associated item of PAD-US 3.0 Spatial Analysis and Statistics ( https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KLBB5D ) was clipped to the Census state boundary file to define the extent and serve as a common denominator for statistical summaries. Boundaries of interest to stakeholders (State, Department of the Interior Region, Congressional District, County, EcoRegions I-IV, Urban Areas, Landscape Conservation Cooperative) were incorporated into separate geodatabase feature classes to support various data summaries ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFileOtherExtents_Clip_Census.zip") and Comma-separated Value (CSV) tables ("PADUS3_0SummaryStatistics_TabularData_CSV.zip") summarizing "PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFileOtherExtents_Clip_Census.zip" are provided as an alternative format and enable users to explore and download summary statistics of interest (Comma-separated Table [CSV], Microsoft Excel Workbook [.XLSX], Portable Document Format [.PDF] Report) from the PAD-US Lands and Inland Water Statistics Dashboard ( https://www.usgs.gov/programs/gap-analysis-project/science/pad-us-statistics ). In addition, a "flattened" version of the PAD-US 3.0 combined file without other extent boundaries ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFile_ClipCensus.zip") allow for other applications that require a representation of overall protection status without overlapping designation boundaries. The "PADUS3_0VectorAnalysis_State_Clip_CENSUS2020" feature class ("PADUS3_0VectorAnalysisFileOtherExtents_Clip_Census.gdb") is the source of the PAD-US 3.0 raster files (associated item of PAD-US 3.0 Spatial Analysis and Statistics, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KLBB5D ). Note, the PAD-US inventory is now considered functionally complete with the vast majority of land protection types represented in some manner, while work continues to maintain updates and improve data quality (see inventory completeness estimates at: http://www.protectedlands.net/data-stewards/ ). In addition, changes in protected area status between versions of the PAD-US may be attributed to improving the completeness and accuracy of the spatial data more than actual management actions or new acquisitions. USGS provides no legal warranty for the use of this data. While PAD-US is the official aggregation of protected areas ( https://www.fgdc.gov/ngda-reports/NGDA_Datasets.html ), agencies are the best source of their lands data.