Marine Protected Areas Inventory

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are defined areas where natural and/or cultural resources are given greater protection than the surrounding waters. In the U.S., MPAs span a range of habitats including the open ocean, coastal areas, inter-tidal zones, estuaries, and the Great Lakes. They also vary widely in purpose, legal authorities, agencies, management approaches, level of protection, and restrictions on human uses.

Over the past century, MPAs have been created by a mix of federal, state, and local legislation, voter initiatives, and regulations, each established for its own specific purpose. As a result, the nation’s collection of MPAs (reserves, refuges, preserves, sanctuaries, areas of special biological significance, and others) is fragmented, complex, confusing, and potentially missing opportunities for broader regional conservation through coordinated planning and management. In 2000, a broad coalition of scientists petitioned the White House to create a national system of MPAs to improve conservation of the nation’s marine ecosystems, cultural resources, and fisheries. Presidential Executive Order 13158 was signed on May 26, 2000, directing the Department of Commerce to work with the Department of the Interior, other federal agencies, states, territories and stakeholders to establish a national system of MPAs to integrate and enhance the nation’s MPAs, bringing these diverse sites and programs together to work on common conservation objectives.

Central to the effort to develop a national system of MPAs is the development of an inventory of U.S. marine protected areas (http://www.mpa.gov/helpful_resources/inventory.html).   The Marine Protected Areas Inventory (MPA Inventory) is a comprehensive geospatial database designed to catalog and classify marine protected areas within US waters. Compiled and managed by NOAA’s MPA Center, the Inventory contains information on over 1,600 sites and is the only such comprehensive dataset in the nation. With various applications for marine management and conservation, its primary purpose is to maintain baseline information on MPAs to the assist in the development of the National System of MPAs, as defined in Executive Order 13158.

The MPA Inventory was developed with extensive input from state and federal MPA programs and drawn from other publically available data. The MPA Center is continually updating and verifying the Inventory data, so and welcomes any new site information, existing site clarifications or updated spatial boundary data. The Inventory data should not be used for regulatory purposes; please consult the Federal Register for the official record.

The Inventory data are current through March 2010 and are provided online in both tabular and GIS form, as well as through an interactive web-based data viewer. GIS data are provided in ESRI shapefile format, and include the following attribute fields:

• Boundaries (GIS version only) 
• Site Name
• Level of Government
• Marine Area
• Year Established
• Level of Protection
• Permanence/Constancy
• Scale of Protection
• Conservation Focus
• Primary Conservation Focus
• Fishing Restrictions

Data, maps, and related products and references can be found online at:

http://www.mpa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/

For questions, please contact the MPA Center GIS Manager, Mimi D’Iorio.