Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD)

ISO-19139 Metadata

Resource Identification Information:

Citation:
Title:  Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD)

Presentation format:  mapDigital

Descriptive keywords:
Keywords:  Downloadable Data

Thesaurus name: ArcGIS Content Type
Descriptive keywords:
Keywords:  Terrestrial; Marine; Protected Areas; CAPAD; Reserves; IUCN

Abstract:  The Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) provides both spatial and textual information about government, Indigenous and privately protected areas for Australia, in both the marine and terrestrial environments. State, Territory and the large NGO conservation agencies supplied data current for 30 June 2024. CAPAD provides a snapshot of protected areas that meet the IUCN definition of a protected area: "A protected area is 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." (IUCN Definition 2008).The department publishes a summary of the CAPAD data biennially on its website at https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/nrs/science/capad.

Purpose: Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD)

Dataset language:  eng
Dataset character set:  utf8

Resource constraints:
Constraints:
Limitations of use: This dataset is available under the CC-BY data licencing model and users are required to acknowledge the Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water as the source of the data in any of their uses. When citing the data please use 'Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024, Commonwealth of Australia 2025'.The data is supplied to the Commonwealth for compilation by States and Territories of Australia and custodianship rests with the source agencies. A list of the agencies is available in the acknowledgements section of the metadata entry.This CAPAD data has been supplied to the Commonwealth for compilation over several months following 30 June 2024 and has taken several months to reach publication stage. Please note that the information supplied is not up-to-date at the time of publication and release by the Commonwealth.It is the responsibility of the person using the CAPAD dataset to always check the metadata for the currency date and if required seek advice from the individual agencies on details of more recent gazettals of protected areas.

Spatial representation type:  vector

Processing environment: Esri ArcGIS 13.3.0.52636

Extent:
Geographic element - Bounding rectangle:
Extent contains the resource: true
West longitude: 60.879271
East longitude: 170.366667
North latitude: -8.473407
South latitude: -72.949999
Credits: Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water 2025

Point of contact - pointOfContact: 
Organization's name: Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Contact's position: Parks Data Manager

Contact information:
Address:
e-mail address: capad@dcceew.gov.au

Spatial Representation - Vector:

Level of topology for this dataset:  geometryOnly
Geometric objects:
Object type:  composite
Object count: 19829

Reference System Information:

Reference system identifier:
Value: 4283
Code space: EPSG
Version: 6.5(3.0.1)

Data Quality Information:

Scope of quality information:
Level of the data:dataset

Lineage:
Lineage statement: The Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) provides both spatial and textual information about government, Indigenous and privately protected areas for Australia, in both the marine and terrestrial environments.. State, Territory and the large NGO conservation agencies supplied data current for 30 June 2024. Where attribute information (as per CAPAD technical specifications) was not provided in the spatial data layers, comparisons were made between data supplied and previous CAPAD versions. Anomalies were corrected by data suppliers or confirmed to be valid. Validation of attribute information and topological structure has been undertaken by the Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Where appropriate updates and amendments have been made to ensure consistency and topological integrity. For consistency with national scale products like IBRA and IMCRA (and area calculations for PA’s across state borders) DCCEEW applies a ‘clip’ to the state borders component of the Geoscience Australia Australia’s Land Borders dataset (reprojected to GDA94).

Distribution Information:

Format:
Format name: Feature Class

Metadata Information:

Metadata language:  eng
Metadata character set:  utf8


Last update:  2025-08-22

Metadata constraints:
Legal constraints:
Access constraints:  license
Use constraints:  license

Other constraints: This dataset is available under the CC-BY data licencing model and users are required to acknowledge the Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy as the source of the data in any of their uses. When citing the data please use ‘Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024, Commonwealth of Australia 2025’. Copyright: © Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) 2025 The data is supplied to the Commonwealth for compilation by States and Territories of Australia and custodianship rests with the source agencies. A list of the agencies is available in the acknowledgements section of the metadata entry. This CAPAD data has been supplied to the Commonwealth for compilation over several months following 30 June 2024 and has taken several months to reach publication stage. Please note that the information supplied is not up-to-date at the time of publication and release by the Commonwealth. It is the responsibility of the person using the CAPAD dataset to always check the metadata for the currency date and if required seek advice from the individual agencies on details of more recent gazettals of protected areas. Due to privacy issues in relation to some covenants on private lands, these data in some jurisdictions are not included in the spatial data.

Scope of the data described by the metadata:  dataset
Scope name: dataset

Name of the metadata standard used: ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata - Implementation Specification
Version of the metadata standard: 2007