The Federal Lands Working Group (FLWG) has been busy!

Geospatial professionals from all land management agencies, and other federal stakeholders, are collaborating with USGS to integrate federal ownership and management boundaries into the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US). PAD-US is the nation’s official inventory of parks and other protected areas, a National Geospatial Data Asset. These are recent updates from the PAD-US development team, highlighting FLWG activities:

Top 10 updates from the team:

1)We’re on the road!

  1. Describing PAD-US, FLWG development, applications and tools
  2. DOI Seminar, Senate GIS Staffers, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Coordination Group briefings (Jan 9-10th)
  3. ESRI Fed UC, Congressional Research Service and Library of Congress up next (Feb 13-15th)

2)We’ve got maps!

  1. Best available representation of federal lands
  2. PAD-US “Land Management”
  3. PAD-US “Federally Managed Lands”
  4. Available from gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus soon.

3)Explore parks and protected areas!

  1. New viewers
  2. Reports coming soon

4)We’re building momentum

  1. Monthly webinars and annual face-to-face meetings for 5 years
  2. Active participation from most federal land management agencies and stakeholders

5)Check out the updated FLWG Website and Fact sheet

  1. Get meeting invites

6)Updates are in progress!

  1. Federal agency data stewards are automating updates for PAD-US 2.0
  2. 15 states, MPAs and Easements too!
  3. Expected Fall 2017

7)We built a review tool

  1. MapCollaborator – Federal lands edition (provisional) for internal FLWG application
  2. Improve boundary quality and attribute completeness in PAD-US 2.0

8)We are your source for federal lands data questions

  1. Summary for Federal Recreation Council in progress
  2. Meeting with USGS National Geospatial Program to assess data sharing options.

9)Hot off the press – the next three years!

  1. NPS and CDC supported assessment for USGS to enhance PAD-US for recreation and public health.
  2. PAD-US Action Plan and Full Report at ProtectedLands.net/vision

10)We need you!

  • PAD-US needsquality inputs!
  • Highlight the importance of high quality geospatial data - federal, state and local government and NGO data stewards need your support!
  • Support collaboration, PAD-US is a national resource!
  • Adopt PAD-US standards whenever possible, provide feedback.
  • Encourage useof PAD-US and tell us about examples
  • Tell us about your applications or what you need.
  • Help find ways tosupport states
  • Build data management capacity and complete the inventory!