Metadata for Montana Managed Areas, 2016 Metadata for Montana Managed Areas, 2016

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Identification Information:

Citation:

Originator: Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP)

Publication date: 10/14/2016

Title: Montana Managed Areas, 2016

Publication place: Helena, Montana
Publisher: Montana State Library

Online linkage: https://ftpgeoinfo.msl.mt.gov/Data/Spatial/MSDI/AdministrativeBoundaries/Historic/

Larger Work Citation:

Title: Montana Managed Areas
Online linkage: https://mslservices.mt.gov/Geographic_Information/Data/DataList/datalist_Details.aspx?did={80C2319F-17BC-4A67-B0DF-BB12B53D1D5E}

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 stewardship mapping data system in 1997. The goal of the Montana Land Stewardship 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, with a major database update occurring annually. The Montana Managed Areas layer contains information on special land designations that impact management decisions. Examples include Indian Reservations, National Wildlife Refuges, State Parks, and Wilderness Areas. Managed Area boundaries do no necessarily correspond to ownership boundaries; a Managed Area may be made up of fee lands, easements, leased lands, and/or other terms. The other Stewardship layers may be referred to for ownership and conservation easement information. Visit the Montana State Library Data List to obtain Conservation Easement and Public Lands data (http://msl.mt.gov/GIS/DataList). 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; ploughing; 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: 10/14/2016
Currentness reference: publication date

Status:

Progress: In work
Maintenance and update frequency: Annually

Access constraints: None

Use constraints:

The Montana State Library provides this product/service for informational purposes only. The Library did not produce it for, nor is it suitable for legal, engineering, or surveying purposes. Consumers of this information should review or consult the primary data and information sources to ascertain the viability of the information for their purposes. The Library provides these data in good faith but does not represent or warrant its accuracy, adequacy, or completeness. In no event shall the Library be liable for any incorrect results or analysis; any direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages to any party; or any lost profits arising out of or in connection with the use or the inability to use the data or the services provided. The Library makes these data and services available as a convenience to the public, and for no other purpose. The Library reserves the right to change or revise published data and/or services at any time.

Point of contact:

Montana State Library
PO Box 201800
Helena, MT 59620-1800
Telephone: (406) 444-5354
TDD/TTY telephone: Montana Relay 711
Fax: 406-444-0266
E-Mail: geoinfo@mt.gov

Data Quality Information:

Attribute accuracy report:

Much of the attribute data originally came from the June 1998 version of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) Project Protected Areas Data (PAD) / Montana GAP Stewardship dataset. The original dataset has been reviewed and edited. New designations are added as they become known. Recently updated designations include BLM Wilderness Study Area and many Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks designations such as Fishing Access Sites and State Parks.

Completeness report:

Data are updated on an annual basis. This dataset 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:

The Managed Area dataset is mostly 1:100,000 scale (100K) data with a horizontal accuracy of approximately 170 feet. Originally from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 100K Public Land Survey and Ownership layers digitized from BLM 100K Surface Management Status maps in 1995-1996. Newer additions to the data are often more accurate (1:24000 scale (24K) data with a horizontal accuracy of approximately 40 feet). All other Stewardship layers (Conservation Easements, Public Lands, and Private Conservation Lands) were originally registered to the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) used by the Montana Cadastral Database. All layers have now been adjusted to the most recent version of the CadNSDI Montana maintained by the Montana State Library. CadNSDI Montana is the current, authoritative source for the most accurate GIS representation of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) used by the Montana Cadastral Database. Please refer to the Montana Cadastral Database metadata for positional accuracy information(http://msl.mt.gov/GIS/Cadastral). The Managed Area data is intended to be registered to this standard on an annual basis. Thus, keep in mind that Managed Areas may not align with other Stewardship layers until this work is complete.

Lineage:

Source information:

Originator: US Bureau of Land Management
Publication date: 06/01/2015
Title: BLM Wilderness Areas and Wilderness Study Areas
Online linkage: http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en/res/public_room/gis/data/montana.html
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution: BLM Wilderness Areas and Wilderness Study Areas
Calendar date: 06/01/2015

Source information:

Originator: Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation
Publication date: 06/01/2015
Title: StateForest
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution: State Forests added and updated.
Calendar date: 06/01/2015

Source information:

Originator: US Bureau of Land Management
Publication date: 06/01/2015
Title: Wild and Scenic Rivers
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution:: Provided data for new and updated BLM Wild and Scenic Rivers.
Calendar date: 06/01/2015

Source information:

Originator: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Publication date: 06/01/2015
Title: Fishing Access Sites (Polygons)
Online linkage: http://fwp.mt.gov/doingBusiness/reference/gisData/dataDownload.html#Bou
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution:: Fishing Access Sites managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Calendar date: 06/01/2015

Source information:

Originator: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Publication date: 09/19/2016
Title: Wildlife Management Areas (Polygons)
Online linkage: http://fwp.mt.gov/doingBusiness/reference/maps/#Bou
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution:: Wildlife Management Areas and Wildlife Habitat Protection Areas managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Calendar date: 09/19/2016

Source information:

Originator: Bureau of Land Management
Publication date: 06/01/2015
Title: Surface Management
Source scale denominator: 100000
Type of source media: None
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. The Montana State Library downloads the latest version each year to update the managed areas dataset.
Calendar date: 06/01/2015

Source information:

Originator: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Publication date: 09/19/2016
Title: State Parks (Polygons)
Online linkage: http://fwp.mt.gov/doingBusiness/reference/maps/#Bou
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution: State Parks managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Calendar date: 09/19/2016

Source information:

Originator: Montana Base Map Service Center
Publication date: 09/30/2016
Title: Montana Reservations
Online linkage: http://msl.mt.gov/GIS/Boundaries
Type of source media: onLine
Source contribution: Updated boundaries of Indian Reservations in Montana.
Calendar date: 09/30/2016

Source information:

Originator:: USDA Forest Service - Geospatial Service and Technology Center (GSTC)
Publication date: 03/20/2008
Title: National Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs)
Online linkage: http://roadless.fs.fed.us/documents/feis/data/gis/coverages/index.shtml
Type of source media: None
Source contribution:: This dataset provided all the information for the Forest Service updates made to the Managed Area layer in 6/2008.

Source information:

Originator: Montana Base Map Service Center
Publication date: 01/01/2016
Title: Montana Cadastral Mapping Project
Source scale denominator: 24000
Type of source media: None
Source contribution:: Source of information on land ownership according to county records. The Montana State Library (MSL) uses those records to create a digital GIS layer of parcel boundaries with parcels (polygons) coded with the Department of Revenue tax-id number. Then MSL 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: 01/01/2000
Ending date: 01/01/2016

Source information:

Originator: U.S. Geological Survey
Publication date: 05/03/2002
Title: National Hydrography Dataset
Source scale denominator: 100000
Type of source media: None
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

Source information:

Originator: University of Montana Wildlife Spatial Analysis Lab
Publication date: 06/30/1998
Title: Montana Gap Stewardship
Source scale denominator: 100000
Type of source media: None
Source contribution:: The current layer is an edited and reformatted version of this source.
Calendar date: 06/30/1998

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: 10/01/1998

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: 05/01/2001

Process step:

The original GAP9806 data had a number of polygons 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 polygons with ID = '?' is really just a guess; and data quality in such areas should be considered poor.


Process date: 05/01/2001

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 labelled with EX = 'x'.


Process date: 06/01/2001

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: 06/01/2001

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: 08/01/2001

Process step:

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


Process date: 09/01/2001

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: 10/01/2001

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: 11/01/2001

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: 12/01/2001

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: 12/01/2001

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: 01/01/2002

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: 02/01/2002

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: 03/01/2002

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: 03/01/2002

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: 06/01/2002

Process step:

Extensive edits to included water polys were made to standardize which water features are included. All lake and reservoir polygons were deleted except (a) those with more than 100 acres and (b) those named features with more than 40 acres. All riverine polygons 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: 11/01/2002

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: 11/01/2002

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: 05/01/2003

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: 05/01/2003

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: 06/01/2004

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: 10/01/2004

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 data layer received from J. Woods of PCTC; and updated CMR NWR ownership based on USFWS 'Guidemaps' produced on 20040624.


Process date: 06/01/2005

Process step:

Data was imported to a 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, Montana 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: 12/01/2006

Process step:

Many changes have been made to this layer in this edit cycle: The most significant change is in the way the data is managed which will be largely transparent to the user. Previously, all Managed Areas were maintained in one GIS layer. They are now broken down into several, according to managing agency, such as MA_BLM, or MA_State. In addition, several managed areas come directly from other layers, such as "Montana Land Reliance - Conservation Easements" (from the Easements layer) or "BLM: Billings Field Office" (from the Ownership layer). These areas are maintained in their native layer and imported to the Managed Areas layer using the MA_ID which is now contained in the Easements and Ownership layers. In addition, contact information for many Managed Areas was updated, and MA_Type was updated and documented for consistency and ease of interpretation. Finally, several Managed Areas were added to the database including: State Parks, Forest Service Wilderness Study Areas, one Forest Service Research Natural Area, one Forest Service National Recreation Area, one Forest Service Wildlife Management Area, some TNC Preserves, and some "Conservation Easement" Managed Areas for Land Trusts that did not already have Managed Areas documented. BLM Wilderness Study Areas were updated to include some that were missing, and to break up the large, multi-parted polygon that contained all BLM WSA's into individual polygons depicting one WSA each.


Process date: 06/01/2008

Process step:

Many changes have been made to the Montana Managed Areas data for the 2010 edition. Data that is better managed in other Stewardship layers are no longer included in the Managed Areas layer. This includes Conservation Easements and several ownership-based areas: State Trust Lands, and lands owned by the US Bureau of Land Management, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and The Nature Conservancy. Lands owned by Plum Creek Timber Company have been deleted from Stewardship altogether due to the difficulty of maintaining this data. Manager's address and phone number attributes have also been deleted from the Managed Area layer. Management of these data were deemed unnecessary in the age of the Internet. Data that were updated and/or added for this edition include: Indian Reservations, BLM Field Office Boundaries and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), FWP State Parks, Fishing Access Sites, Wildlife Management Areas, and Wildlife Habitat Protection Areas and DNRC State Forests.


Process date: 07/01/2010

Process step:

Managed Areas have been spatially aligned to the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) used by the Montana Cadastral Database. During this process, many Managed Areas were checked and confirmed against recent source data with corrections and updates made where necessary. New Managed Areas were added as needed including some BLM ACEC's, MFWP Wildlife Mangement Areas, and Manning Lake Tribal Wildlife Refuge. Several BLM Areas of Critical Environmental Concern were removed at the request of the BLM State Office due to restricted status. BLM Field Office boundaries were removed and will be offered in a separate layer. TNC Macrosites were removed as TNC indicated they were no longer used this designation.


Process date: 08/01/2011

Process step:

Managed Areas have been spatially aligned to the March 2016 Montana CadNSDI used by the Montana Cadastral Database. During this process, all of the datasets were obtained from their source and updated in the database. The Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks State Parks and Wildlife Management Areas are current as of 20160919. All other datasets are current as of 201506.


Process date: 09/30/2016

Spatial Data Organization Information:

Point and vector object information:

SDTS object type: GT-polygon composed of chains

SDTS object count: 1128

Spatial Reference Information:

Horizontal coordinate system definition:

Map projection:

Map projection name: WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere
Map projection parameters:

Planar distance units: meter

Geodetic model:

Horizontal datum name: D WGS 1984
Ellipsoid name: WGS 1984
Semi-major axis: 6378137.0
Denominator of flattening ratio: 298.257223563

Entity and Attribute Information:

Entity type label: MontanaManagedAreas

Attribute label: MAName

Attribute definition: Name of Managed Area.

Attribute label: Manager

Attribute definition: Manager for the Managed Area.

Attribute label: MA_ID

Attribute definition:: Unique identifier for each Managed Area, linking to the MTNHP Biotics Database, where other MA information is stored.

Attribute label: Filter

Attribute definition:: Used to filter out certain Managed Areas that MTNHP does not wish to show on certain maps.

Attribute label: Acres

Attribute definition: Managed Area acres, as calculated by the GIS.

Attribute label: InstType

Attribute definition:: Value definition for the first letter of MAType, representing the type of institution of the managing agency.

Attribute label: MA_Type

Attribute definition:: Type of Managed Area. This field is a composite code that is parsed and defined in the fields InstType, Inst, and UnitType.

Attribute label: Shape