U.S. Marine Protected Area Boundaries: MPA Inventory, 2010

Description:

This polygon shapefile represents the Marine Protected Areas inventory as of March 2010. The MPA Inventory is a comprehensive geospatial database that provides detailed information for existing marine protected areas in the United States. The inventory provides geospatial boundary information (in polygon format) and classification attributes that seek to define the conservation objectives, protection level, governance and related management criteria for all sites in the database. The comprehensive inventory of federal, state and territorial MPA sites provides governments and stakeholders with access to information to make better decisions about the current and future use of place-based conservation. The information also will be used to inform the development of the national system of marine protected areas as required by Executive Order 13158. The inventory represents a collection of data compiled from various federal, state, tribal and territorial entities to provide a publicly available source of comprehensive information on place-based marine conservation efforts under U.S. federal, state, territorial, local, and tribal jurisdiction. NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center in joint effort with the US Department of the Interior. U.S. Marine Protected Area Boundaries: MPA Inventory, 2010. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/qc867hr5185. This dataset consists of original boundaries as represented by the managing agencies, including any terrestrial components of the protected areas. Only the sub-tidal components of the areas meet the definition of an MPA. Version Notes: This version contains boundaries for all sites from authoritative sources as updated between 6/2009-12/2009. New data have been added for multiple states and territories, including Alaska, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, US Virgin Islands and Wisconsin. Numerous shipwreck sites represented as latitude/longitude coordinate points were converted to polygons using a 300-meter radius buffer. NMFS sites have been verified against US Code of Federal Regulations.

Creator:

United States. Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, National Marine Protected Areas Center (U.S.), United States. Department of Commerce, and United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Publisher:

National Marine Protected Areas Center (U.S.)

Provider:

Stanford

Subject:

Marine habitat conservation, Marine biodiversity conservation, Marine resources conservation, Marine parks and reserves, Location, Oceans, and Boundaries

Temporal Coverage:

2010

Date Issued:

2010

Spatial Coverage:

United States and North America

Access Rights:

Public

Format:

Shapefile

More details at:

https://purl.stanford.edu/qc867hr5185