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Short Citation:
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, 2024: Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Inventory 2023-2024, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/69506.

Item Identification

Title: Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Inventory 2023-2024
Short Name: MPA Inventory 2023
Status: Completed
Creation Date: 2023-01-31
Revision Date: 2023
Publication Date: 2023
Abstract:

The NOAA MPA 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.

Purpose:

The NOAA MPA Inventory (v2023) is a comprehensive catalog 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.

Notes:

NOTE that as of 2020, the MPA Inventory includes IUCN MPAs only. IUCN MPAs are those sites that meet the IUCN definition of protected area as published in 2008 guidelines: 'A protected area is a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the longterm conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values'.

Keywords

Theme Keywords

Thesaurus Keyword
ISO 19115 Topic Category
boundaries
ISO 19115 Topic Category
location
ISO 19115 Topic Category
oceans
NGDA Portfolio Themes
National Geospatial Data Asset
NGDA Portfolio Themes
NGDA
NGDA Portfolio Themes
Water Oceans and Coasts Theme
UNCONTROLLED
NOS Data Explorer Topic Category Marine Boundaries
None Marine Conservation Areas
None Marine Protected Areas
None Ocean Conservation

Spatial Keywords

Thesaurus Keyword
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Location Keywords
CONTINENT > NORTH AMERICA
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Location Keywords
CONTINENT > NORTH AMERICA > UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Physical Location

Organization: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
City: Silver Spring
State/Province: MD

Data Set Information

Data Set Scope Code: Data Set
Data Set Type: GIS Files
Maintenance Frequency: As Needed
Distribution Liability:

The MPA Center shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained in this database. These data and related graphics are not legal documents and are not intended to be used as such.The information contained in these data is dynamic and may change over time. The data are not better than the original sources from which they were derived. It is the responsibility of the data user to use the data appropriately and within the limitations of geospatial data in general, and these data in particular.

Data Set Credit: NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center in joint effort with the US Department of the Interior

Support Roles

Data Steward

CC ID: 1225420
Date Effective From: 2020
Date Effective To:
Contact (Position): MPA Data Manager
Address: 99 Pacific Street
Monterey, CA 93940
Email Address: mpainventory@noaa.gov
Phone: 831-647-6462
Fax: 831-647-1732

Distributor

CC ID: 1225421
Date Effective From: 2020
Date Effective To:
Contact (Position): MPA Data Manager
Address: 99 Pacific Street
Monterey, CA 93940
Email Address: mpainventory@noaa.gov
Phone: 831-647-6462
Fax: 831-647-1732

Distributor

CC ID: 1232309
Date Effective From: 2020
Date Effective To:
Contact (Organization): Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS)
Address: 1305 East-West Highway, 11th Floor
Silver Spring, MD 20910
URL: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/

Metadata Contact

CC ID: 1225422
Date Effective From: 2020
Date Effective To:
Contact (Position): MPA Data Manager
Address: 99 Pacific Street
Monterey, CA 93940
Email Address: mpainventory@noaa.gov
Phone: 831-647-6462
Fax: 831-647-1732

Point of Contact

CC ID: 1225423
Date Effective From: 2020-01
Date Effective To:
Contact (Position): MPA Data Manager
Address: 99 Pacific Street
Monterey, CA 93940
Email Address: mpainventory@noaa.gov
Phone: 831-647-6462
Fax: 831-647-1732

Extents

Currentness Reference: Publication Date

Extent Group 1

Extent Group 1 / Geographic Area 1

CC ID: 1225433
W° Bound: -180
E° Bound: 180
N° Bound: 70.329403
S° Bound: -15.386142

Extent Group 1 / Time Frame 1

CC ID: 1225432
Time Frame Type: Discrete
Start: 2014-10

Spatial Information

Reference Systems

Reference System 1

CC ID: 1225430

Coordinate Reference System

CRS Type: Geographic 2D
EPSG Code: EPSG:4326
EPSG Name: WGS 84
See Full Coordinate Reference System Information

Access Information

Security Class: Unclassified
Data Access Constraints:

These data are publicly accessible and downloadable via http://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/

Data Use Constraints:

These data are in the Public domain. The data are not to be used for navigation.

Distribution Information

Distribution 1

CC ID: 1225424
Start Date: 2023
End Date: Present
Download URL: https://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/
Distributor: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) (2020 - Present)
File Name: MPA Inventory 2023
File Type (Deprecated): Arc Geodatabase
Distribution Format: ESRI File Geodatabase
File Size: 178MB

Distribution 2

CC ID: 1270075
Start Date: 2023
End Date: Present
Download URL: https://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/mpaviewer/
Distributor: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) (2020 - Present)
File Name: NOAA MPA Inventory Interactive Map

Distribution 3

CC ID: 1270073
Start Date: 2023
End Date: Present
Download URL: https://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/media/data/NOAA_Marine_Protected_Areas_Inventory_2023.zip
Distributor: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) (2020 - Present)
File Name: Downloadable GIS Data

Distribution 4

CC ID: 1270076
Start Date: 2023
End Date: Present
Download URL: https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=eb2b36aecb004f14ac29cf0260624291
Distributor: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) (2020 - Present)
File Name: Web Mapping Service

Distribution 5

CC ID: 1225425
Start Date: 2023
End Date: Present
Download URL: https://www.geoplatform.gov/metadata/667d9674-aa7d-597d-bf58-207ba0f986c0
Distributor: Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) (2020 - Present)
File Name: MPA Inventory 2023
File Type (Deprecated): REST Service
Distribution Format: Web Service (Other)

URLs

URL 1

CC ID: 1225426
URL: https://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/
Name: MPA Center website
URL Type:
Online Resource

Data Quality

Representativeness:

Data were collected from variety of federal and state geospatial sources and integrated into one data product. As of the 2020 version, the MPA Inventory provides boundary and classification information exclusively for MPAs that meet the international protected area definition established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). IUCN protected areas are defined as:

A clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated, and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values.

Accuracy:

Data were collected from various sources at various spatial scales. The datasets collected were not resampled and are presented in their original form as provided from the contributing agencies, with the exception for a variety of sites that were digitized from coordinates provided by governing agencies.

Completeness Measure:

This version of the MPA Inventory contains geospatial boundaries for 979 marine protected areas. New and/or altered sites that are not currently present in the database will be added as data are made available.

Data Management

Have Resources for Management of these Data Been Identified?: No
Approximate Percentage of Budget for these Data Devoted to Data Management: Unknown
Do these Data Comply with the Data Access Directive?: Yes
Is Access to the Data Limited Based on an Approved Waiver?: No
Actual or Planned Long-Term Data Archive Location: NCEI-CO

Lineage

Process Steps

Process Step 1

CC ID: 1232312
Description:

GIS data for all sites were collected from authoritative sources. Data were either downloaded from public websites, requested directly from MPA managers or digitized based on legal definitions (eg US Code of Federal Regulations).

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Process Step 2

CC ID: 1232313
Description:

All sites were reviewed by MPA Center to ensure a match between GIS data and MPA Inventory description.

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Process Step 3

CC ID: 1232314
Description:

All data were reprojected to WGS 1984, decimal degrees.

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Process Step 4

CC ID: 1232315
Description:

All new site data were merged into a single shapefile with existing sites.

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Process Step 5

CC ID: 1232316
Description:

MPA Inventory shapefile was dissolved to one multipart polygon per site.

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Process Step 6

CC ID: 1232317
Description:

MPA Inventory attribute data were appended to shapefile.

Process Date/Time: 2014-10-01 00:00:00

Child Items

Rubric scores updated every 15m

Rubric Score Type Title
Entity MPA Inventory Attributes

Catalog Details

Catalog Item ID: 69506
GUID: gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:69506
Metadata Record Created By: Mimi D'Iorio
Metadata Record Created: 2023-03-30 17:27+0000
Metadata Record Last Modified By: SysAdmin InPortAdmin
Metadata Record Last Modified: 2023-11-30 18:11+0000
Metadata Record Published: 2023-05-10
Owner Org: ONMS
Metadata Publication Status: Published Externally
Do Not Publish?: N
Metadata Last Review Date: 2023-03-30
Metadata Review Frequency: 1 Year
Metadata Next Review Date: 2024-03-30