CPAD GAP Edition
Coming in 2011 - the CPAD-GAP Edition!
CPAD is part of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US), published by the U.S. Geological Survey's Gap Analysis Program (GAP).
GAP defines conservation status codes using a 1-4 scale. This scale also relates to the global system developed by the International Union for the COnservation of Nature (IUCN), which uses a 1-VI scale (more information on IUCN).
GreenInfo Network has worked with GAP to develop a prototype system that uses GIS techology to define most of the gap status codes for CPAD data.
The CPAD-GAP Edition will be published end of 2011 and will include gap ranks for all parcels in CPAD. This Edition will not consider subareas of ownership holdings that are managed with specific policies (e.g., forest management plans), but it will include GAP-established default ranks for all ownership and policy designations currently available.
Gap ranks are not be provided in the core CPAD dataset because they are defined in part based on overlying policy designations (Wilderness Areas, Wild & Scenic Rivers, etc.), which are separate from the core ownership data in CPAD. CPAD will remain an ownership-based data product, while the CPAD-GAP Edition will include other areas that are established by policy rather than ownership. The core data set and the GAP-Edition will, however, be usable together in a geodatabase to allow for querying between them.
More information will be available when the CPAD GAP Edition is published.
USGS Gap Analysis Program Status Code Definitions:
Status 1: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a natural state within which disturbance events (of natural type, frequency, intensity, and legacy) are allowed to proceed without interference or are mimicked through management.
Status 2: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a primarily natural state, but which may receive uses or management practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities, including suppression of natural disturbance.
Status 3: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover for the majority of the area, but subject to extractive uses of either a broad, low-intensity type (e.g., logging, OHV recreation) or localized intense type (e.g., mining). It also confers protection to federally listed endangered and threatened species throughout the area.
Status 4: There are no known public or private institutional mandates or legally recognized easements or deed restrictions held by the managing entity to prevent conversion of natural habitat types to anthropogenic habitat types. The area generally allows conversion to unnatural land cover throughout or management intent is unknown.
