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Full catalog/GFSAD30AFCE
GFSAD30AFCE·v001·dataset

Where croplands are in Africa, 2015 (30 m)

Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) Cropland Extent 2015 Africa 30 m V001
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 3 GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. A detailed map showing where farmland is across Africa for 2015, at 30-meter resolution. Each pixel is labeled as cropland, non-cropland, or water.

How it's made. Made by combining Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery with elevation data and running it through automated classification methods that learn to recognize cropland.

How & where you'd use it. Provides baseline data for agriculture, water-use, and food-security studies and helps inform policymaking about farming and land use.

What's measured

AGRICULTURE › AGRICULTURAL PLANT SCIENCE › CROP/PLANT YIELDSLAND SURFACE › LAND USE/LAND COVER › LAND USE CLASSESLAND SURFACE › LANDSCAPE › LANDSCAPE PATTERNSBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › ANTHROPOGENIC/HUMAN INFLUENCED ECOSYSTEMS › AGRICULTURAL LANDS › CROPLAND

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2013-01-01 → 2016-06-30
  • Measured byLANDSAT-8 (OLI) · Sentinel-2A (Sentinel-2 MSI) · DEM · LANDSAT-5 (TM)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-37, -50.108476, 70.001218, 40.10861
  • FormatsGeoTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments ([MEaSUREs](https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/competitive-programs/measures)) Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) data product provides cropland extent data over the continent of Africa for nominal year 2015 at 30 meter resolution (GFSAD30AFCE). The monitoring of global cropland extent is critical for policymaking and provides important baseline data that are used in many agricultural cropland studies pertaining to water sustainability and food security. The GFSAD30AFCE data product uses two pixel-based supervised classifiers, Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), and one object-oriented classifier, Recursive Hierarchical Image Segmentation (RHSEG). The classifiers retrieve cropland extent from a combination of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) data and elevation derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Version 3 data products. Each GFSAD30AFCE GeoTIFF file contains a cropland extent layer that defines areas of cropland, non-cropland, and water bodies over a 10° by 10° area. Known Issues * Known issues, including constraints and limitations, are provided on page 20 of the ATBD.

Get the data

gfsad30afce_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GFSAD30AFCE",
    version="001",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.