Available data and information on the Protected Areas Center

Protected areas are the cornerstone around which regional, national and international conservation strategies are developed. The data that can be found on the Data Basin Protected Areas Center provide users with critical spatial data and information about lands and waters set-aside to preserve functioning natural ecosystems, provide refuges for species, and maintain ecological processes.  By bringing this information together in one place, users from around the world can come together to explore the global significance of protected areas.

The data available on the Protected Areas Center range from data about an individual protected area boundary, to aggregated national and international data layers. The content within the center has been filtered to make searching for protected areas related data simpler and easier.

Featured U.S. Protected Areas Layers

• PAD-US (CBI Edition) - is a database that portrays the United States protected fee lands with standardized spatial geometry and valuable attribution on land ownership, management designations, and conservation status (using national GAP and International IUCN coding systems)
• National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) - is a collaborative venture to compile a national database of conservation easements that includes both spatial and tabular information from land trusts and public agencies into a single, up-to-date, sustainable, GIS compatible layer
• Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Inventory - is a comprehensive database inventory of geospatial boundary information (in polygon format) and classification attributes of marine protected areas in the United States that seek to define the conservation objectives, protection level, governance and related management criteria for all sites in the database

Featured International Protected Areas Layers

• Commission for Environmental Cooperation - is a standardized protected areas layer for North American (in collaboration with agencies in all three countries - Canada, Mexico and the US)
• Protected Areas Database of Canada - is a database of permanently protected lands by province or territory of Canada

The data on the Data Basin Protected Areas Center is user driven, if your agency or group has updated or new protected areas data or information please contact Kai Henifin at khenifin@consbio.org