WDPCA: Protected and Conserved Areas in Spain with Monthly Updates

Marine and terrestrial protected area boundaries and OECM designations for Spain are provided in this geospatial resource. Managed by the UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, the data is updated monthly to facilitate international biodiversity policy and management.

Use Cases

• Spatial analysis of marine and terrestrial boundaries to measure progress toward the 30% conservation target
• Risk assessment for commercial projects by intersecting site coordinates with protected area polygons
• Monitoring the distribution of Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) for environmental reporting

Strengths

• Monthly update cycle ensures data reflects recent conservation status changes
• Consolidates WDPA and WD-OECM data into a unified conservation framework
• Available in four formats including GeoJSON, GeoPackage, and CSV for cross-platform compatibility

Limitations

• Attribute schema and specific column definitions are not provided in the source metadata
• Spatial accuracy depends on the reporting quality of contributing government agencies

Provenance

Source

UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)

Collection Method

Collaborative compilation from government and stakeholder reporting

Freshness

Updated on a monthly basis.

Geography

Spain