Crop Type Maps for Operational Global Agricultural Monitoring

Abstract Crop type maps identify the spatial distribution of crop types and underpin a large range of agricultural monitoring applications ranging from early warning of crop shortfalls, crop condition assessments, production forecasts, and damage assessment from extreme weather, to agricultural stat...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Inbal Becker-Reshef, Brian Barker, Alyssa Whitcraft, Patricia Oliva, Kara Mobley, Christina Justice, Ritvik Sahajpal
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-03-01
Series:Scientific Data
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02047-9
Description
Summary:Abstract Crop type maps identify the spatial distribution of crop types and underpin a large range of agricultural monitoring applications ranging from early warning of crop shortfalls, crop condition assessments, production forecasts, and damage assessment from extreme weather, to agricultural statistics, agricultural insurance, and climate mitigation and adaptation decisions. Despite their importance, harmonized, up-to-date global crop type maps of the main food commodities do not exist to date. To address this critical data gap of global-scale consistent, up-to-date crop type maps, we harmonized 24 national and regional datasets from 21 sources covering 66 countries to develop a set of Best Available Crop Specific masks (BACS) over the major production and export countries for wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans, in the context of the G20 Global Agriculture Monitoring Program, GEOGLAM.
ISSN:2052-4463