BLM Idaho Wilderness Study Areas: Historical 2008 Boundaries

BLM ID NLCS Historic Wilderness Study Area is a historical polygon feature class for Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in Idaho managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The dataset captures the WSA boundaries as they existed in 2008, including areas later abolished by the 2009 Omnibus bill. It is provided by the Department of the Interior via Data.gov.

Use Cases

• Analyze historical land use and conservation planning based on 2008-era wilderness study boundaries.
• Track legislative impacts on public lands by comparing abolished areas to current designations.
• Support historical GIS research on federal land management in Idaho.

Strengths

• Provides a specific historical snapshot of land designations from 2008.
• Includes areas and inholdings that were later removed, preserving a record of the original policy.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats including GeoJSON, KML, and CSV for flexibility.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official BLM land management records.

Time Range

Represents boundaries as of 2008.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-11 16:01:52.633930; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Idaho, United States.