Database Design
Over the past year, the PAD-US Partnership has been developing the preliminary design for an improved national inventory of protected areas. The project has been supported by grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey Gap Analysis Program. The new database will build on the major past land inventory efforts by USGS GAP and The Conservation Biology Institute (CBI).
DESIGN PROPOSAL: The overall structure and attribute framework of the full PAD-US are illustrated in the diagram at right. A more complete technical report will be available in September 2009 describing the proposed database design. Key organizations involved in developing the design include UGSG GAP, the Conservation Biology Institute, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and The Nature Conservancy, with further support from NatureServe and IUCN. Technical support has been provided by Applied Geographics.
PROTECTED AREAS: PAD-US considers "protected areas" to be any lands dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity and to other natural, recreation and cultural uses, and managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. In the future, PAD-US may encompass marine protected areas, as well as lands conserved through time-limited policies or legal agreements.
FOCUS ON FEE LANDS: The initial focus of the PAD-US is on fee-owned lands that are protected in perpetuity (efforts to incorporate data on private land easements will likely be undertaken in a parallel effort). PAD-US begins with emphasis on lands critical for biodiversity preservation, but at the same time seeks to enhance data on all recreation and other open space resource lands. Additional protected areas data will also be considered in the near future – marine protected areas, lands protected for limited periods of time, and other types of restrictions will be evaluated for inclusion into PAD-US.
DATA AGGREGATION STRATEGY: In general, PAD-US will be developed by aggregating federal agency data, state by state data and data from national conservation organizations. A critical element in the overall PAD-US approach is to provide support to states to improve their protected area inventories. As a part of this approach the PAD-US Partnership will seek out financial resources to support state efforts, and will encourage states and others to adopt core data standards for protected areas.
PAD-US DESIGN REPORT: The report of the PAD-US Partnership, A Map for the Future, summarizes the design of the full PAD-US database. A more detailed technical report on the design will be available in September 2009. Initial work implementing elements of this design will occur in later 2009, as part of updating PAD-US version 1.0. This work will be undertaken by the Conservation Biology Institute and USGS Gap Analysis Program. During 2010-2012, in a major project, the Partnership expects to work at many levels to produce a much more complete and robust data inventory. This will include assisting states to improve their data, building the technology infrastructure to manage the data and creating the integration and quality assurance processes needed.
Check back for more details in September (and sign up for our e-newsletter to stay in touch).