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Full catalog/GFSAD30SACE
GFSAD30SACE·v001·dataset

Where croplands are in South America (2015, 30m)

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

What it measures. A map showing where croplands were across South America around 2015, marking each spot as cropland, non-cropland, or water at fine 30-meter detail.

How it's made. Created by feeding Landsat 5, 7, and 8 imagery plus elevation data into a machine-learning classifier that sorts each pixel into a category, delivered as GeoTIFF tiles covering 10-by-10-degree areas.

How & where you'd use it. Provides baseline information on where farming happens, supporting studies of food security, water use, and land-use planning.

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 → 2016-12-31
  • Measured byLANDSAT-8 (OLI) · LANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · DEM · LANDSAT-5 (TM)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-110, -60, -20, 15
  • 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 South America for nominal year 2015 at 30 meter resolution (GFSAD30SACE). 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 GFSAD30SACE data product uses the pixel-based supervised classifier, Random Forest (RF), to retrieve cropland extent from a combination of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data, and elevation derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Version 3 data products. Each GFSAD30SACE 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 18 of the ATBD.

Get the data

gfsad30sace_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GFSAD30SACE",
    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.