Relative Wilderness Index for the Contiguous United States

A geospatial dataset from The Wilderness Society (TWS) and NASA EarthData mapping the relative wildness of the contiguous United States. It combines six attributes—solitude, remoteness, uncontrolled process, natural composition, unaltered structure, and pollution—to produce a unitless relative rank index. The data supports the strategic goal of creating a national network of wildlands.

Use Cases

• Create hard copy and digital maps of relative wildness across landscapes based on the six attribute ranks.
• Analyze the continuum of wildness in urban and undeveloped areas to inform conservation planning.
• Use the wildness index as input for other environmental modeling processes where wilderness has meaning.
• Assess landscapes for solitude and remoteness attributes to support wilderness area designation studies.

Strengths

• Based on a defined conceptual framework with six specific wilderness attributes.
• Covers the entire contiguous United States for a comprehensive spatial analysis.
• Developed in support of a strategic national conservation goal.

Limitations

• The wildness index is a unitless relative rank; values are ordinal and not suitable for absolute comparisons or arithmetic operations.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality, column definitions, and file formats require manual inspection after download.
• Row count, sample data, and last update date are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

The Wilderness Society (TWS) and NASA EarthData.

Collection Method

Combination of data representing six attributes of land contributing to wildness, with source data values assigned to five attribute ranks on an equal-area basis.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Contiguous United States.