Metadata for Montana Private Conservation Lands Metadata for Montana Private Conservation Lands

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Identification Information:

Citation:

Originator: Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP)
Originator: Montana State Library
Publication date: 12/30/2016
Title: Montana Private Conservation Lands
Online linkage: https://ftpgeoinfo.msl.mt.gov/data/Spatial/NonMSDI/Shapefiles/LandMan_PrvtCons.zip

Abstract:

Montana's landscape is a complex, constantly changing patchwork of federal, state, private and tribal ownership. Within these ownerships are many kinds of designations, including wilderness, parks, wildlife areas, recreation areas, and conservation easements. Because information on land stewardship is critical to effective land management, the Montana Natural Heritage Program began integrating ownership and management data into a land management mapping data system in 1997. The goal of the Montana Land Management Mapping Project is to manage a single, statewide digital data set that incorporates information from both public and private entities. The project assembles information on land ownership and management, conservation easements, state and federal agencies, and land trusts on a regular basis.

The Montana Private Conservation Lands layer contains parcels owned by land trusts and other private conservation organizations.

Map features in this data set are not intended as a legal depiction of public or private surface land ownership boundaries and should not be used in place of a survey conducted by a licensed land surveyor. Similarly, map features do not imply public access to any lands.

Purpose:

Biological Applications:
To assess the conservation status of a species one must know (1) how much of it there is (how many populations and individuals) and (2) how secure or threatened those populations and individuals are. The ownership and management status of the land is a large determinant of how secure the habitat that supports a given population may be. Private lands protected by conservation easements are less likely to have activities that would threaten the population than are unprotected private lands (activities like subdivision and development; plowing; draining wetlands; mining; etc.) Similarly public lands designated as wilderness or research natural areas generally provide more secure habitat for species than do undesignated lands.

Planning Applications:
Land ownership and management information is essential for long- and short-term land use planning.

This data also provides a useful basemap for many applications to help orient viewers.

Time period of content:

Calendar date: 2016
Currentness reference: publication date

Status:

Progress: In work
Maintenance and update frequency: Yearly

Access constraints: None

Use constraints:

Please be aware that these data are frequently changed and updated. Rather than distribute the data to second parties, please refer interested parties to the Montana Natural Heritage Program for the most recent version of the data.

Map features in this data set are not intended as a legal depiction of public or private surface land ownership boundaries and should not be used in place of a survey conducted by a licensed land surveyor. Similarly, map features do not imply public access to any lands.

This land status data set may not be complete and may contain errors in boundary locations and/or coding. The Montana Natural Heritage Program makes no representations or warranties whatsoever with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the data and assumes no responsibility for the suitability of the data for a particular purpose. The Montana Natural Heritage Program will not be liable for any damages incurred as a result of errors in this data set.

Point of contact:

Montana Natural Heritage Program
P.O. Box 201800
Helena, MT 59620-1800
Telephone: (406) 444-5363
E-Mail: mtnhp@mt.gov

Data Quality Information:

Attribute accuracy report:

The attribute data underwent a major revision for the 2010 edition. Data were checked against multiple sources and appropriate updates made and errors corrected. Parcels where conflicting information was found were coded as "1000" pending further research.

Completeness report:

Data are updated as information becomes available. Delays between changes in land status and their inclusion in this layer can vary from a few weeks to over a year depending on the source of the information. This data set is a work in progress; it contains errors of omission and errors in current attributes.

Please note that this dataset contains information on surface status only. The dataset contains no information about ownership or status of the mineral estate.

Map features in this data set are not intended as a legal depiction of public or private surface land ownership boundaries and should not be used in place of a survey conducted by a licensed land surveyor. Similarly, map features do not imply public access to any lands.

Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report:

This data is registered to the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) used by the Montana Cadastral Database. Please refer to the Montana Cadastral Database metadata for positional accuracy information (http://giscoordination.mt.gov/).

Other layers in the Montana Land Management Database are also aligned to the GCDB.

Lineage:

Source information:

Originator:: University of Montana
Wildlife Spatial Analysis Lab
Publication date: 06/30/1998
Title: Montana Gap Stewardship
Source scale denominator: 100000
Source contribution:: The current layer is an edited and reformatted version of this source.
Calendar date: 06/30/1998

Source information:

Originator: Bureau of Land Management
Publication date: 12/10/1996
Title: 1:100000 surface management status
Source scale denominator: 100000
Type of source media: mylar
Source contribution:: The BLM began digitizing their 100K surface management status maps (most of which were published in the late 1970s and early 1980s) in circa 1995. That digital layer has been continuously corrected and updated since its inception. The 19961210 version of that layer was the basis for the GAP9806 layer. MTNHP has used several more recent versions to update 'stew'.
Calendar date: 1975
Calendar date: 12/10/1996
Calendar date: 06/1998
Calendar date: 03/1999
Calendar date: 09/2000

Source information:

Originator: Montana Department of Administration
Publication date: 11/01/2001
Title: Montana Cadastral Mapping Project
Source scale denominator: 24000
Source contribution:: Source of information on land ownership according to county records. The DOA uses those records to create a digital GIS layer of parcel boundaries with parcels (polygons) coded with the Department of Revenue tax-id number. MTNHP then uses this layer to verify and correct land status data and parcel boundaries from other sources (although the Cadastral Project data are often not accurate for public lands; since they are not taxed).
Beginning date: 2000
Ending date: 07/2002

Source information:

Originator: U.S. Geological Survey
Publication date: 05/03/2002
Title: National Hydrography Dataset
Source scale denominator: 100000
Source contribution:: NHD linework is used to represent water features (lakes, reservoirs, and rivers) included in this stewardship layer. Where linework errors occur in the NHD version used, 1992 TIGER linework was used to 'fill in'.
Beginning date: 06/22/1997
Ending date: 05/03/2002

Process step:

Changed the original (GAP9806) attributes by deleting all and replacing with OWN; EASE; LEASE; DESIG. Used reselects on OWNER/MANAGER from the GAP9806 layer to populate the new fields.


Process date: 10/1998

Process step:

Ownership data were updated based on datasets obtained from the following agencies: Glacier National Park; Kootenai National Forest; Flathead National Forest; Gallatin National Forest; Lewis and Clark National Forest.


Process date: 05/2001

Process step:

The original GAP9806 data had a number of polys with no ownership data; mostly along the southern boundary of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. These were either eliminated or coded based on information in the 200009 BLM 100K ownership layer or by simply extending existing arcs to intersect the current reservation boundary or Missouri River arcs. Ownership and/or boundaries for polys with ID = '?' is really just a guess; and data quality in such areas should be considered poor.


Process date: 05/2001

Process step:

Several very large complex polygons (private ownership in eastern Montana) were interfering with certain map applications. These were arbitrarily split up and the arcs and labels added to do so were labeled with EX = 'x'.


Process date: 06/2001

Process step:

Conservation easement data were entered and/or checked and coded with ID numbers supplied by the individual land trusts for all easements through Year 2000 for the following land trusts: Flathead Land Trust; Five Valleys Land Trust; Montana Land Reliance; Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; The Nature Conservancy; Gallatin Valley Land Trust.


Process date: 06/2001

Process step:

The original BLM coverage contained many 'dog-legs' in arcs that cross 100K quad boundaries; plus many extraneous vertices and occasional split polygons. These were removed by editing on-screen over a 100K quad background layer (but many extraneous vertices likely remain).


Process date: 08/2001

Process step:

Census 2000 and Cadastral (CAD) data were used to add off-reservation BIA trust lands where the two sources agreed.


Process date: 09/2001

Process step:

Boundaries delineating wilderness recommendations and other management decisions from national forest land-management plans were deleted. (These data had been added by the GAP Project.)


Process date: 10/2001

Process step:

Data relating to the mineral estate; namely (1) polygons coded as being "withdrawn" and (2) distinctions between "public domain" and "acquired" or "LU" or "Bankhead-Jones" lands; were deleted by editing parcel by parcel (a manual 'dissolve'). This process occasionally included edits based on cadastral (CAD) data; for example along the Canadian border from 106-110 W longitude.


Process date: 11/2001

Process step:

Completed integrating Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks data for lands owned or leased or under easement by the department. This is mostly COGO data initially received from NRIS April 2000 An updated version of these data was received November 2001 and used to update 'stew'; and edits continue to be made as data are supplied by MFWP.
Arcs are incorporated unchanged when there are no or few existing and conflicting arcs in 'stew' (existing arcs are moved to align with the MFWP data.) When there are many conflicting arcs; the MFWP parcels are added using or based on the existing 100K data.


Process date: 12/2001

Process step:

Data for the Flathead Indian Reservation (especially for tribal vs allotted lands) was updated based on a February 1999 map produced by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Parcels were digitized on-screen over a TIFF image obtained by scanning and rectifying the map.


Process date: 12/2001

Process step:

Data for state trust lands were corrected by comparing against tabular data (section/acres/legal) obtained from DNRC and then editing on-screen.


Process date: 01/2002

Process step:

Data for Research Natural Areas and US Forest Service Special Interest Areas were checked and updated and coded with designation dates based on information from the Regional Office in Missoula (Steve Shelly).


Process date: 02/2002

Process step:

Conservation easement data were entered and coded with ID numbers and recordation dates supplied by the individual land trusts for all easements through Year 2001 for the following land trusts: Montana Land Reliance; Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; The Nature Conservancy; Gallatin Valley Land Trust; Prickly Pear Land Trust; Five Valleys Land Trust.


Process date: 03/2002

Process step:

The Plum Creek Timber Company ownership data were updated based on a 20010120 dataset from Plum Creek and then updated again based on a dataset current as of 200201 that also excludes lands for which Plum Creek just holds timber rights.


Process date: 03/2002

Process step:

Many arc and label features were added so as to incorporate administrative units such as national forest ranger districts; BLM Field Offices; DNRC Lands Offices; MFWP Regional Offices; and Indian Reservations. The additional arc and label features are necessary to split parcels that straddle these administrative units. The added features are flagged with an attribute (EX) so that they can be removed if desired.


Process date: 06/2002

Process step:

Extensive edits to included water polys were made to standardize which water features are included. All lake and reservoir polys were deleted except (a) those with more than 100 acres and (b) those named features with more than 40 acres. All riverine polys were deleted except those for the following rivers:
- Kootenai - all in Montana
- Clark Fork - below Bonner (Blackfoot River)
- Flathead - all
- North Fork - below Logging Creek
- Middle Fork - below McDonald Creek
- South Fork - below Hungry Horse Dam
- Missouri - all in Montana
- Yellowstone - all in Montana
- Bighorn - all in Montana
In addition all islands were deleted except those larger than 10 acres that occur within included water features. Linework for water features to be retained was replaced with the version in the NHD (where and if it differed.) All included water features were coded for ownership.


Process date: 11/2002

Process step:

Incorporated BLM wilderness study areas (WSAs) as per data received from BLM website (10/15/2002). Areas along the Missouri are very complex with 4 designations (ACEC WSA NM WSR) overlapping. The Centennial Mtns area is confusing too due to overlapping WSA and PRIMITIVE designations plus ownership changes since both were designated.


Process date: 11/2002

Process step:

Conservation easement data were entered and coded with ID Numbers and recordation dates supplied by the individual land trusts for year 2002 easements for the following land trusts: Montana Land Reliance, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, Gallatin Valley Land Trust, and the Five Valleys Land Trust.


Process date: 05/2003

Process step:

The Plum Creek Timber Company ownership data were updated based on a data set received from them, dated 1/20/2003.


Process date: 05/2003

Process step:

Year 2003 conservation easements were added for The Nature Conservancy, Montana Land Reliance, Five Valleys Land Trust; several new US Fish and Wildlife Service easements were added; several new Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks fee and easement acquisitions were added; and some ownership adjustments between US Forest Service and private in the Taylor's Fork area of the Gallatin NF were made.


Process date: 06/2004

Process step:

Updated database to reflect land exchanges involving Plum Creek, the Nature Conservancy, and Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the Blackfoot river basin, and other ownership changes and new easements across the state.


Process date: 10/2004

Process step:

Various updates to the data: new conservation easements for 2004 for The Nature Conservancy; Montana Land Reliance; Five Valleys Land Trust; Gallatin Valley Land Trust; Bitterroot Land Trust; Prickly Pear Land Trust and US Fish and Wildlife Service; plus updates to Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks areas. Also updated BLM ownership for the Butte Field Office, based on data received from B. Mueller on 20050616; updated Plum Creek Timber Co. (PCTC) ownership based on a January 2005 datalayer received from J. Woods of PCTC; and updated CMR NWR ownership based on USFWS 'Guidemaps' produced on 20040624.


Process date: 06/2005

Process step:

Data was imported to an ESRI personal geodatabase and split into four feature classes: Ownership, Easements, Leases, and Managed_Areas. In the Ownership layer, Private Lands were eliminated. All areas not attributed in the Ownership layer can be assumed to be private. Limited Ownership updates were made where data was available (from Gallatin National Forest, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and the Nature Conservancy). Little effort was made to gather further ownership data due to the work in this area that is being done by the Department of Administration. Conservations Easements were updated for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Monana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, The Nature Conservancy, Montana Land Reliance, Five Valleys Land Trust, Gallatin Valley Land Trust, Prickly Pear Land Trust, and the Vital Ground Foundation. Leases were not updated. One new Managed Area was added, the Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area, for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.


Process date: 12/2006

Process step:

Several updates have been made to this layer including: Some small parcels owned by the Prickly Pear Land Trust that have been partially sold, The Nature Conservancy parcel sales and acquisitions, a few Forest Service acquisitions, Montana State Trust Land Land Banking sales and purchases, MFWP acquisitions, and one parcel owned by The Vital Ground Foundation.


Process date: 06/2008

Process step:

These data have undergone major revisions since last released. The Montana Base Map Service Center aligned the data to the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) used by the Montana Cadastral Database. During this process, attributes were checked against multiple sources for accuracy. Many additions, deletions, and changes across all land owner categories occurred to bring the data up-to-date. Parcels with conflicting source information were coded as "1000" pending further research. Certain owner categories were left out entirely due to difficulties in maintaining accurate data. These include BIA and Tribal-owned lands (see Managed Areas for Reservation Boundaries), Plum Creek Timber Company lands, and all water designations (see NHD for water information). Private conservation lands (those owned by Land Trusts or other conservation-oriented entities) were removed to a separate layer (Montana Private Conservation Lands).


Process date: 06/2010

Process step:

The Montana Basemap Service Center and the Montana Natural Heritage Program have continued to collaborate in researching data discrepancies and seeking data updates. Corrections, additions, and subtractions known to date have been included in this layer.


Process date: 02/2011

Process step:

Updates were made for lands owned by The Nature Conservancy, American Prairie Foundation, Prickly Pear Land Trust, and Five Valleys Land Trust. Updates were made based on data from The Nature Conservancy and the Montana Cadastral database.


Process date: 06/2013

Process step:

Updates were made for lands owned by The Nature Conservancy, American Prairie Reserve (formerly American Prairie Foundation), Prickly Pear Land Trust, Five Valleys Land Trust, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and The Vital Ground Foundation. Updates were made based on data from The Nature Conservancy and the Montana Cadastral database.


Process date: 10/2015

Process step:


Process date: 12/30/2016

Spatial Data Organization Information:

Point and vector object information:

SDTS object type: G-polygon

SDTS object count: 158

Spatial Reference Information:

Horizontal coordinate system definition:

Grid coordinate system name: State Plane Coordinate System

SPCS zone identifier: 2500

Lambert conformal conic:

Standard parallel: 45.000000
Standard parallel: 49.000000
Longitude of central meridian: -109.500000
Latitude of projection origin: 44.250000
False easting: 600000.000000
False northing: 0.000000

Planar distance units: meters

Geodetic model:

Horizontal datum name: North American Datum of 1983
Ellipsoid name: Geodetic Reference System 80
Semi-major axis: 6378137.000000
Denominator of flattening ratio: 298.257222

Entity and Attribute Information:

Entity type label:

Ownership

Attribute label: SHAPE

Attribute definition: Feature geometry.
Attribute domain: Coordinates defining the features.

Attribute label: Owner

Attribute definition: Two-digit code representing the agency that owns the area.

Attribute label: OWNERCATEG

Attribute label: OwnerName

Attribute definition: The name of the agency that owns the area.

Attribute label: OwnerLabel

Attribute definition: An abbreviation for the OwnerName for display on maps.

Attribute label: OwnerType

Attribute definition: Type of owner

Attribute label: Acres

Attribute definition: Acres, calculated by the GIS.

Attribute label: SHAPE.area

Attribute label: SHAPE.len

Attribute label: SHAPE.fid

Attribute definition: Internal feature number.
Attribute domain:: Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.

Distribution Information:

Distributor:

Montana Natural Heritage Program
P.O. Box 201800
Helena, MT 59620-1800
Telephone: (406) 444-5363
E-Mail: mtnhp@mt.gov
Contact instructions: Contact via email

Resource description: Downloadable Data

Distribution liability:

The user of this data agrees to release the Montana Natural Heritage Program; its officers; directors; agents; employees; and those acting on its behalf from all debts; claims; and liability of any kind arising out of or in connection with the use of the data.

Please be aware that these data are frequently changed and updated. Rather than distribute the data to second parties, please refer interested parties to the Montana Natural Heritage Program for the most recent version of the data.

Map features in this data set are not intended as a legal depiction of public or private surface land ownership boundaries and should not be used in place of a survey conducted by a licensed land surveyor. Similarly, map features do not imply public access to any lands.

This land status data set may not be complete and may contain errors in boundary locations and/or coding. The Montana Natural Heritage Program makes no representations or warranties whatsoever with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the data and assumes no responsibility for the suitability of the data for a particular purpose. The Montana Natural Heritage Program will not be liable for any damages incurred as a result of errors in this data set.

Standard order process:

Digital form:

Metadata Reference Information:

Metadata date: 12/30/2016

Metadata contact:

Montana Natural Heritage Program
P.O. Box 201800
Helena, MT 59620-1800
Telephone: (406) 444-5363
E-Mail: mtnhp@mt.gov