https://hal.science/hal-05607537v1
Georeferenced data on protected areas underpin much of the research studying the impacts of nature conservation on the environment and human wellbeing. Yet, existing databases typically record only the current state of each site. When boundaries or designations change, previous configurations are silently overwritten, preventing reliable temporal analyses and introducing bias in impact evaluations. We present a replicable temporal data model that extends the World Database on Protected Areas with time-bounded states documenting boundary modifications, status reclassifications, governance changes, temporary protections, and internal zoning. The model is designed to be generalizable to any national context and extensible to the full diversity of protected area modifications. We demonstrate it on Madagascar's 123 terrestrial protected areas over 2000-2025, integrating historical archive snapshots, successive national system datasets, legal texts from the national legislative database, and expert literature. All amendments are stored in a version-controlled YAML registry and consolidated through deterministic rules implemented in R. The resulting dataset is distributed in GeoPackage and GeoParquet formats, enabling spatio-temporal analyses of conservation dynamics.
https://hal.science/hal-05607537v1
Georeferenced data on protected areas underpin much of the research studying the impacts of nature conservation on the environment and human wellbeing. Yet, existing databases typically record only the current state of each site. When boundaries or designations change, previous configurations are silently overwritten, preventing reliable temporal analyses and introducing bias in impact evaluations. We present a replicable temporal data model that extends the World Database on Protected Areas with time-bounded states documenting boundary modifications, status reclassifications, governance changes, temporary protections, and internal zoning. The model is designed to be generalizable to any national context and extensible to the full diversity of protected area modifications. We demonstrate it on Madagascar's 123 terrestrial protected areas over 2000-2025, integrating historical archive snapshots, successive national system datasets, legal texts from the national legislative database, and expert literature. All amendments are stored in a version-controlled YAML registry and consolidated through deterministic rules implemented in R. The resulting dataset is distributed in GeoPackage and GeoParquet formats, enabling spatio-temporal analyses of conservation dynamics.