What is PAD-US?
PAD-US: America's Inventory of Protected Areas and Parks
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) assembles known protected areas that prioritize biodiversity conservation, and also assembles lands and waters that provide public access to nature. PAD-US is a single, regularly updated geospatial database that allows users to find exact boundaries and essential attribute information for protected areas in the United States. The PAD-US is an authoritative data aggregation, with source data provided by the Data Stewards network that includes public lands managed by agencies, preserves owned by nonprofits, and private lands protected via conservation easement in the United States. It serves many types of users and is developed through partnerships with states, federal agencies, and national nonprofit organizations.
What can I use the PAD-US for?
Learn about different uses of the PAD-US below.
Learn about more the PAD-US uses here !
What types of “protected areas" exist?
Learn about the different types of land in PAD-US below.
Fee There are lands owned in fee title by agencies and organizations.
Easements Lands with an easement held over private land and public lands for purpose of conservation, open space, and other uses. Much of this data comes directly into PAD-US from the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED).
Designations Designations are usually defined by legislative actions which sometimes include specific maps of boundaries drawn through political processes. They are wide range of areas such as Wilderness Areas, National Monuments, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, or Wild & Scenic Rivers. These do not represent ownership and often have been defined with different boundaries than the ownership they overlay (especially Wilderness Areas). Several designations may overlay one another. In addition, some state managed areas (Wildlife Management Areas, State Parks) may overlap fee owned federal lands.
Marine The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contributes the boundaries of all Marine Protected Areas (MPA) from their MPA Inventory into PAD-US, which also contain state designations. Many federal and state areas will be represented as Parks or Refuges in the ‘Fee’ feature class, as well as MPAs in the Marine feature class (MPA is another designation applied to the same unit). The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) also provides other withdrawn areas within the Outer Continental Shelf that can be available for natural resource extraction. Many legitimate overlaps exist between MPAs as protection may vary at the surface or substrate, or for different species or seasons. Overlaps also exist between BOEM and NOAA provided data, with MPAs on top in the layering order.
Proclamations Includes boundaries that provide context for protected areas, such as military lands (DOD) and Tribal areas. Most are suitable for illustration only as an outline, or exterior extent, as ownership within is not defined. NPS or USFS ‘Proclamation’ boundaries and FWS Approved Acquisition boundaries describe where each agency has authority to acquire lands, as voluntary opportunities arise and often with total acreage limitations. These boundaries may be somewhat or even vastly larger than actual agency fee ownership or easement interest. In addition, FWS Approved Acquisition boundaries may include significant limits for acquisition (for example, only 2,000 acres may be acquired within one of the largest mid western boundaries). ‘Proclamation’ and approved acquisition boundaries do NOT portray federal ownership and often encompass private lands.
Combined ‘Fee’, ‘Designation’, and ‘Easement’ data combined into one feature class, and loaded in that order – this is a very powerful layer to explore the complex U.S. protected areas network, but effective use requires great understanding of the overlaps, largely within the ‘Designation’ layer or between ‘Fee’ and ‘Designation’.
Learn About the PAD-US Explorer
Learn more from an overview of PAD-US Explorer, as well as more about the Protected Areas , Public Access Areas , and Managed Areas views.
