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Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 3.0 Raster Analysis

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: July 16, 2025 | Last Modified: 20220706
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.

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2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Agricultural Research Service Alabama (AL) Alaska (AK) American Samoa (AS) Arizona (AZ) Arkansas (AR) Army Corps of Engineers Biodiversity Bureau of Land Management Bureau of Reclamation California (CA) Colorado (CO) Connecticut (CT) Conservation Delaware (DE) Department of Defense Department of Energy Federal Lands Florida (FL) Forest Service GAP Status Code Gap Analysis Georgia (GA) Governmental Units Guam (GU) Hawaii (HI) IUCN Category Idaho (ID) Illinois (IL) Indiana (IN) Iowa (IA) Kansas (KS) Kentucky (KY) Land Manager Land Ownership Land Stewardship Local Government Lands Louisiana (LA) Maine (ME) Mariana Islands (MP) Maryland (MD) Massachusetts (MA) Michigan (MI) Minnesota (MN) Mississippi (MS) Missouri (MO) Montana (MT) NGDA Portfolio Themes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Park Service Natural Resources Conservation Service Nebraska (NE) Nevada (NV) New Hampshire (NH) New Jersey (NJ) New Mexico (NM) New York (NY) North Carolina (NC) North Dakota (ND) Ohio (OH) Oklahoma (OK) Oregon (OR) Outdoor Recreation Parks Pennsylvania (PA) Private Lands Protected Area Protection Status Public Health Public Lands Public Open Space Puerto Rico (PR) Rhode Island (RI) South Carolina (SC) South Dakota (SD) State Lands Tennessee (TN) Tennessee Valley Authority Texas (TX) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service U.S. Minor Outlying Islands (UM) USGS:6196bc01d34eb622f691acb5 United States United States Virgin Islands (VI) Utah (UT) Vermont (VT) Virginia (VA) Washington (WA) West Virginia (WV) Wisconsin (WI) Wyoming (WY) data integration land use and land cover natural resource management

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