USGS PAD-US — Protected Areas Database of the United States
The authoritative US inventory of protected lands — parks, forests, wilderness, conservation easements. CC0 public domain. Powers UFFDA's field and area overlap screen.
What this is
PAD-US is USGS's comprehensive, authoritative inventory of US protected areas — federal, state, local, private, tribal, and marine. It is the US national contribution to the WDPA (World Database on Protected Areas) and covers all categories of protected lands. UFFDA uses PAD-US for two things: Mode A (a map overlay showing where protected lands are) and Mode B (an overlap check — does a specific field or supply-shed area intersect a protected area?). PAD-US is published as CC0 public domain, which sidesteps the WDPA/IBAT license trap — the global WDPA via Protected Planet is non-commercial only and prohibits redistribution in commercial web maps. PAD-US is strictly better for US-specific queries: more authoritative, more detailed for US lands, and freely usable commercially. Version: PAD-US 3.0 (2022), confirmed from USGS ArcGIS Online service metadata.
Why we surface it
The CC0 license is the decisive factor. WDPA (the global protected areas database) is non-commercial only — we can't serve it in a commercial API. PAD-US is the US-authoritative source that feeds WDPA and is fully open. For Ryan's supply-shed due diligence case, the honest 'no overlap' answer — a field confirmed clear of protected lands — is the value, not just the overlay.
What you can do with it
Shown for commercial use. Personal, research, and nonprofit use is often more permissive — switch the verdict lens on the catalog.
- Internal / individual use
- Public domain. Use it for anything — internal, resale, AI training, closed products. No attribution legally required (crediting the source is still the decent thing to do).
- Redistribute the data
- Public domain. Use it for anything — internal, resale, AI training, closed products. No attribution legally required (crediting the source is still the decent thing to do).
- Republish a derivative
- Public domain. Use it for anything — internal, resale, AI training, closed products. No attribution legally required (crediting the source is still the decent thing to do).
- Build into a private product
- Public domain. Use it for anything — internal, resale, AI training, closed products. No attribution legally required (crediting the source is still the decent thing to do).
This decoder is a starting point, not legal advice. For commercial deployment, run the actual license terms past someone who reads them for a living.
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