New England Protected Open Space: A Regional Compilation

New England's Protected Open Space dataset is a compilation of existing open space data for the region, integrating sources such as The Nature Conservancy's Secured Areas, the National Conservation Easement Database, and the Protected Areas Database of the U.S. It is maintained by Harvard Forest for research purposes, with version 1.2 developed between May 2021 and March 2022 and published in March 2023. The dataset is provided in both file geodatabase and shapefile formats, with the geodatabase recommended for full attribute field names.

Use Cases

• [Conservation gap analysis] based on [compiled protected area boundaries from multiple sources]
• [Land-use change modeling] based on [spatial data on secured areas and easements]
• [Regional policy assessment] based on [aggregated data from states and land trusts]
• [GIS-based habitat connectivity studies] based on [geospatial compilation of open space]

Strengths

• [Compilation from multiple authoritative sources] including The Nature Conservancy, NCED, and PAD-US
• [Explicit versioning and development timeline] with version 1.2 developed over a 10-month period (May 2021–March 2022)
• [Format guidance provided] recommending the geodatabase to preserve full-length attribute field names

Limitations

• [Specific column names and dataset size (row count, file size)] are not provided in the available metadata
• [Potential for version confusion] as versions may be uploaded to repositories 'out of order' relative to their development date
• [Attribute completeness may vary] as version 1.1 is noted as a partial rather than exhaustive update

Provenance

Source

Harvard Forest, Harvard University

Collection Method

Compilation of existing datasets from The Nature Conservancy, National Conservation Easement Database (NCED), Protected Areas Database of the U.S. (PAD-US), states, and land trusts.

Time Range

Data reflects sources current circa May 2021 for version 1.2.

Freshness

Version 1.2 was published in March 2023, with data added circa May 2021.

Geography

New England region of the United States.