Abstract
Monitoring global agriculture systems relies on accurate and timely cropland information acquired worldwide. Recently, the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program has produced Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) cropland extent maps at three different spatial resolutions, i.e., GFSAD1km, GFSAD250m, and GFSAD30m. An accuracy assessment and comparison of these three GFSAD cropland extent maps was performed to establish their quality and reliability for monitoring croplands both at global and regional scales. Large area (i.e., global) assessment of GFSAD cropland extent maps was performed by dividing the entire world into regions using a stratification approach and collecting a reference dataset using a simple random sampling design. All three global cropland extent maps were assessed using a total reference dataset of 28,733 samples. The assessment results showed an overall accuracy of 72.3%, 80–98%, and 91.7% for GFSAD1km, 250 m (only for four continents), and 30 m maps, respectively. Additionally, a regional comparison of the three GFSAD cropland extent maps was analyzed for nine randomly selected study sites of different agriculture field sizes (i.e., small, medium, and large). The similarity among the three GFSAD cropland extent maps in these nine study sites was represented using a similarity matrix approach and two landscape metrics (i.e., Proportion of Landscape (PLAND) and Per Patch Unit (PPU)), which categorized the crop proportion and the crop pattern. A comparison of the results showed the similarities and differences in the cropland areas and their spatial extent when mapped at the three spatial resolutions and considering the different agriculture field sizes. Finally, specific recommendations were suggested for when to apply each of the three different GFSAD cropland extent maps for agriculture monitoring based on these agriculture field sizes.
Highlights
Agriculture monitoring plays a significant role for ensuring food security, social stability, and for providing information to farmers on crop yield predictions and decision makers for policy and planning purposes [1]
These three Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) cropland extent maps must be assessed and compared both at the global and regional scale to establish their quality and reliability as the base map for generating higher level cropland products such as crop type and crop intensity maps [21]. These maps provide for both large area comparisons between the different spatial resolutions including the identification of similarities and differences and for determining their suitability for more regional analysis, especially when considering different agriculture field sizes [19]
With the recent release of the three different GFSAD cropland extent maps produced by different researchers, their quality and reliability must be evaluated at global and regional scales
Summary
Agriculture monitoring plays a significant role for ensuring food security, social stability, and for providing information to farmers on crop yield predictions and decision makers for policy and planning purposes [1]. It is well known that mapping of cropland areas at different spatial resolutions can result in large differences in the estimates of cropland area and spatial extent [19,20] These three GFSAD cropland extent maps must be assessed and compared both at the global and regional scale to establish their quality and reliability as the base map for generating higher level cropland products such as crop type and crop intensity maps [21]. These maps provide for both large area (i.e., global) comparisons between the different spatial resolutions including the identification of similarities and differences and for determining their suitability for more regional analysis, especially when considering different agriculture field sizes [19]. These three GFSAD cropland extent maps should be assessed and compared to explore the agriculture field sizes
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