Project period: may 21, 2025 through may 20, 2030:GIS data on protected lands is essential for a wide range of planning, analysis, decision-making, and public education activities

Americas overall GIS inventory of public parks and other protected open space is the protected areas database of the united states (pad-US), created and published by the USGS GAP analysis project. Pad-US has been steadily growing in both user base and profile in recent years and is on a steady trajectory for further expansion. Efforts are needed to sustain this momentum, ensuring that users are broadly aware of pad-US and able to use the data effectively. The overall design, quality, and completeness of pad-US data should be focused on meeting user needs and securing their support of this data set. Protected areas data is critical to a wide range of public and private decision making, including habitat conservation, global reporting on U.S. Treaties, provision of recreation and enhancement of public health, sound land use planning, adaptation to climate change, and many other important issues. Pad-US is the official national GIS data set of protected lands, and its continued improvement will allow IT to play an ever-more-valuable role at the global, federal and state levels, as well as at the local level. This project will accomplish the following six objectives, in partnership with the USGS GAP pad-US team and others: objective 1: technical support to the pad-US GIS team support GIS production work for frequent pad-US release: support quality assurance work, participate in working groups, support efficient data collection and aggregation with technical automation.objective 2: outreach to highlight and share pad-US news and engage new users create or advise on presentations, outreach opportunities, new connections, conferences, and supporting materials. Make updates to existing outreach products (maps, graphics, reports, presentations) as needed.objective 3: stewards database coordination with USGS make improvements to ensure usability and consistency of products, provide user support, and consult on enhancements to usability of the database. Objective 4: protectedlands.net updates and maintenance updates and routine maintenance for the protectedlands.net website. The protectedlands.net website is a companion website to the USGS pad-US website. Objective 5: contribute to future planning documents for pad-US as requested support development of strategic work plans for pad-US. Includes support for written content, messaging advice, and design and graphics for strategic work plans.objective 6: cartographic products data and design updates to poster series for pad-US, consisting of a collection of five national maps. Includes other possible cartographic products: custom variations on those standard poster maps, or other print or digital map needs.