Description: The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages over 446,000 acres of public lands and protected open space in the state. The DNR Lands data (part of Technology Toolbox Protected Lands data set) consists of mapped information that represent those lands that are owned by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Utilizing various land protection programs and funding sources, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has preserved environmentally important lands through the use of perpetual conservation easements. The Forest Legacy Program is designed to identify and protect environmentally important forest lands that are threatened by present or future conversion to non-forest use through the use of perpetual conservation easements between willing sellers and willing buyers. Only private forest land in a Forest Legacy Area is eligible for the program. Marylands Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) has helped thousands of Maryland landowners plant streamside buffers, establish wetlands, protect highly erodible land, and create wildlife habitat. The State of Maryland has entered into a memorandum of Agreement with USDA authorizing the State of Maryland to continue the voluntary program for the purchase of perpetual easements for Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land. A perpetual CREP easement is a written legal agreement between a landowner and the State of Maryland in which there is an acquired permanent interest in the land to install or maintain conservation practices that protect water quality and natural resources. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) administers the CREP easement program. DNR is also assisted by a number of local governments and non-government organization sponsors.Data from individual county and state records were used in production of DNR Lands. Specific Project boundary maps, subdivision plats and deed plots were used to create boundary polygons. In the case of the Chesapeake Forest properties, original property boundary data was received from the Chesapeake Corporation. The horizontal accuracy of these lines is being continually improved.The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data.
Description: In 1997, the Maryland General Assembly approved the Rural Legacy Program as a major component of Governor Glendening's Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Initiative. The purpose of the Rural Legacy Program is to protect Maryland's best remaining rural landscapes and natural areas through the purchase of land or conservation easements. Funds are awarded by grants to sponsors to purchase fee simple interests or easements on property within a Rural Legacy Area. This file consists of properties that have been protected using Rural Legacy funds.The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data. This service, or any portion thereof, can be freely distributed as long as the metadata entry is not modified or deleted. Products must include source citation.
Description: The Maryland Environmental Trust (MET) is a statewide local land trust governed by a citizen Board of Trustees. Since its creation by the General Assembly in 1967, MET's main goal is the preservation of open land, such as farmland, forest land, and significant natural resources. The primary tool for doing this is the conservation easement, a voluntary agreement between a landowner and the MET Board of Trustees.
Description: The Forest Conservation Act of 1991 requires units of local government with planning and zoning authority to establish and implement local forest conservation programs, and provides for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) administration of forest conservation requirements. During the 2008 Legislative Session, HB972 was adopted which effected the Forest Conservation Act's reporting and enforcement requirements. On or before July 1st of each year, the DNR shall submit to the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee and the House Environmental Matters Committee a statewide report compiled from local authorities. Included with this report DNR will also be required to submit, to the best practicable extent, the size shape and location of all conserved and planted forest areas submitted in an electronic geographic information system or other similar computer aided design format.GIS data from local governmental entities with planning and zoning authority was collected to create this GIS layer.The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data. This service, or any portion thereof, can be freely distributed as long as the metadata entry is not modified or deleted. Products must include source citation.
Name: MD Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation Easements
Display Field: Own_Name
Type: Feature Layer
Geometry Type: esriGeometryPolygon
Description: The Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF), housed within the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA), protects agricultural lands through the use of perpetual easements. This program was created by the Maryland General Assembly in 1977, is governed by the Agricultural Article, Sections 2-501 through 2-519 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. MALPF’s primary purpose is to preserve productive agricultural land and woodland to provide for the continuing production of food and fiber for the citizens of Maryland. This is accomplished by landowners voluntarily applying to sell an easement on their property through a competitive State-wide application process. MALPF easement boundaries are estimated based on property descriptions provided by MDA, aligned to iMap parcel polygons and supplemented with MdProperty View data to facilitate use with vectorized parcel data. This GIS dataset is intended for general guidance and use only and is not designed as a substitute for legal survey. The coordinates displayed do not represent legal parcel corners and/or boundaries and they cannot be used for establishment of or in lieu of legal land survey boundaries. New fields have been added since the previous update to facilitate the integration of this dataset with the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US). Attributes for these fields, which are identified below as PAD-US fields, are not available for all data collected historically. The Maryland Department of Planning will continue to populate these new fields as updates become available. For a full description of the contents of the PAD-US fields, see https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/science-analytics-and-synthesis/gap/pad-us-data-manual.
Attributes within this dataset include:
Source Protected Area ID (PAD-US field): MALPF easement numberSettled
Acres: Settlement acreage
Settled Date: Settlement date, including month date and year
County: County in which protected land is located
Weblink: Link to more information about the protection program
Category (PAD-US field): PAD-US classification for the protection mechanism associated with the protected property
Owner Type (PAD-US field): General land owner type of the fee property interest, standardized for the US
Owner Name (PAD-US field): Owner of the fee interest of the property, standardized for the nation
Local Owner (PAD-US field): The actual name of the owner of the fee interest
Easement Holder Type (PAD-US field): Where the ‘Category’ of protection code (above) is listed as “Easement”, this field specifies the type of holder of the easement.
Easement Holder (PAD-US field): Where the ‘Category’ of protection code (above) is listed as “Easement”, this field indicates the actual name of the holder of the conservation easement.
Unit Name (PAD-US field): The name of the land management unit or protected area
State (PAD-US field): Name of state in which the protected land is located
Aggregator Source (PAD-US field): Organization credited with data aggregation. Attributed in the format 'organization name_filename
YearPublished.filetype'GIS Source (PAD-US field): The original source of GIS spatial and attribute information the aggregator obtained where availableGIS Source Date (PAD-US field): The date (yyyy/mm/dd) GIS data was obtained by the data source for aggregation
GIS Acres (PAD-US field): Acres calculated for each polygon in NAD83 Meters. The GIS Acres may differ from the Settled Acres, particularly in cases where easement boundaries are estimated based on parcel polygon boundaries.
Date of Protection (PAD-US field): The year (yyyy) the property was legally protected via fee acquisition or enactment of a conservation easement
Public Access (PAD-US field):Accessibility of the property to the public, standardized
Description: This data illustrates parcels subject to some type of preservation easement as well as properties owned by federal, state, and local governments. In addition, properties owned by local land trusts and private conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy are included. Conversation easements include easements from the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF), Rural Legacy, Forest Legacy, Maryland Environmental Trust (MET), county and state purchases of development rights, transfers of development rights, open space from home owners associations, local open space requirements, and private conservation easements. This data is complied from settlement data directly from conservation program administrators, county GIS updates on preservation activities, and public available data from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. In addition, this data is in the process of being realigned to the 2012 IMAP parcel polygons. The realignments at available on a county by county basis depending on the production schedule.
Copyright Text: MD iMAP, DNR, MDP:
Maryland Department of Planning
301 W. Preston Street, Suite 702
Baltimore, MD 21201
Name: Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program
Display Field: PropName
Type: Feature Layer
Geometry Type: esriGeometryPolygon
Description: The Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP) is a nationally-competitive land conservation program through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was established to protect important coastal and estuarine areas that have significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historical or aesthetic values. Each year, Marylands Chesapeake & Coastal Program can submit to NOAA up to three project proposals each with a requested funding of $3,000,000 per project and an 1 to 1 match. Project proposals support coastal land conservation goals outlined in Marylands CELCP plan. The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data.Information on the number of acres protected in Maryland can be found on the Maryland Protected Lands Reporting site at http://dnrweb.dnr.state.md.us/gis/plreports/.Source: MD Department of Natural Resources
Description: The Private Conservation data layer is a collection of properties that are protected from development by a Private Conservation group or society either through ownership or conservation easement.The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data. This service, or any portion thereof, can be freely distributed as long as the metadata entry is not modified or deleted. Products must include source citation.
Description: The Federal Lands data consists of land areas that are run and maintained by U.S. Governmental authorities and are considered protected.Data were contributed by the Department of Natural Resources Resources' Land Acquisition Program and Geospatial Information and Analaysis ,as well as the Maryland Department of Planning MdProperty View.The Department of Natural Resources makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the use or appropriateness of Spatial Data, and there are no warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. The information contained in Spatial Data is from publicly available sources, but no representation is made as to the accuracy or completeness of Spatial Data. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be subject to liability for human error, error due to software conversion, defect, or failure of machines, or any material used in the connection with the machines, including tapes, disks, CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and energy. The Department of Natural Resources shall not be liable for any lost profits, consequential damages, or claims against the Department of Natural Resources by third parties. The liability of the Department of Natural Resources for damage regardless of the form of the action shall not exceed any distribution fees that may have been paid in obtaining Spatial Data.
Name: Transfer Development Rights and Purchase Development Rights
Display Field: ProtType
Type: Feature Layer
Geometry Type: esriGeometryPolygon
Description: Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) are two tools used to protect lands from development. "Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) is a voluntary, incentive-based program that allows landowners to sell development rights from their land to a developer or other interested party who then can use these rights to increase the density of development at another designated location. While the seller of development rights still owns the land and can continue using it, an easement is placed on the property that prevents further development. A TDR program protects land resources at the same time providing additional income to both the landowner and the holder of the development rights." Source: https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/clue/Documents/PlanImplementation/Transfer_of_Development_Rights.pdf The Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) is a voluntary program in which a land trust or a local, county or state agency buys the development rights on a parcel of land, primarily agricultural. PDRs "permanently extinguish all preexisting development potential of a particular property and are not used to offset development elsewhere in the county. Other than very limited rights reserved to the original grantor and their immediate family, no further commercial or residential subdivision is allowed. The grantor of the easement and all subsequent owners of the property retain full fee simple ownership of the land, but are bound by the terms of the Deed of Easement" in perpetuity. Source: http://www.harfordcountymd.gov/368/HALPP These data are intended for general guidance and use only.