Multi Study Crop Mask (NASA EOSDIS, 2016)

This Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) at nominal 1 km result from a collaborative effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), to provide global cropland data that contributes towards global food security in the twenty-first century. GCE 1 km Multi-study Crop Mask provides cropland extent, irrigated vs. rainfed. Note that the spatial distribution of a disaggregated five class global cropland extent map derived at nominal 1 km based on four major studies: Thenkabail et al. (2009a, 2011), Pittman et al. (2010), Yu et al. (2013), and Friedl et al. (2010). Classes 1 to Class 5 are cropland classes that are dominated by irrigated and rainfed agriculture. Class 4 to and Class 5 have minor/very minor fractions of croplands. Irrigation major: areas irrigated by large reservoirs created by large and medium dams, barrages, and even large ground water pumping. Irrigation minor: areas irrigated by small reservoirs, irrigation tanks, open wells, and other minor irrigation. However, it is very hard to draw a strict boundary between major and minor irrigations and in places, there can be significant mixing. For example, major irrigated areas such as the Ganges basin, California’s central valley, Nile basin, and other major command areas (e.g, several major and medium reservoirs for the Krishna basin in India, numerous major and medium irrigation in China), are clearly distinguishable. Input data used in these various products include remote sensing (e.g., Landsat, MODIS, AVHRR, SPOT vegetation), secondary (e.g., elevation), climate (e.g., 50-year precipitation, 20-year temperature), reference (e.g., sub-meter to 5-m imagery, ground data), and statistics (e.g., country statistics) data were used.