US GAP Protected Areas Database for the US (PAD-US)

Species

Population

Community

Ecosystem

Local

Regional

Continental

Compilation

Publicly available

Data request

Level of Organization	Species, Population, Community, Ecosystem
Scale	Local, Regional, Continental
Data Type	Compilation
Accessibility	Publicly available, Data request

The USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) PAD-US is the national inventory of U.S. terrestrial and marine protected areas that are dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity and to other natural, recreation and cultural uses, managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. Lands in PAD-US are mainly open space/resource lands owned in fee by agencies and non-profits. The current data set includes the “gap ranks” of these lands, indicating how they are being managed for conservation purposes. PAD-US includes all federal and most state conservation lands, and many areas at regional and local scales, with plans underway to expand these holdings in the database.

The data are available to download; http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/download/

or to view on the web: http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/viewer/