Where croplands are across Asia (30 m, 2015)
What it measures. A map of where croplands were across Southeast and Northeast Asia in 2015, sorting the land into cropland, non-cropland, and water at 30-meter resolution.
How it's made. Created by feeding Landsat 7 and 8 imagery plus elevation data into a machine-learning classifier (Random Forest) that learns to recognize farmland.
How & where you'd use it. Provides baseline data for studying food security and water use, helping policymakers and researchers track where farming happens. Note that some small Pacific islands are not classified.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2013-01-01 → 2016-12-31
- Measured byLANDSAT-8 (OLI) · LANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · DEM
- Processing levelLevel 3
- Spatial extent70, -45, 180, 60
- 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 Southeast and Northeast Asia for nominal year 2015 at 30 meter resolution (GFSAD30SEACE). 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 GFSAD30SEACE data product uses the pixel-based supervised classifiers, Random Forest (RF), to retrieve cropland extent from a combination of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and elevation derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Version 3 data products. Each GFSAD30SEACE 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 * Certain small islands in the Pacific are not classified and therefore data for these areas are not provided. * Additional known issues, including constraints and limitations, are provided on page 19 of the ATBD.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="GFSAD30SEACE",
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. Official links
- Earthdata Search allows users to search, discover, visualize, refine, and access NASA Earth Observation data. GET DATA
- The technical information in the User's Guide enables users to interpret and use the data products. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The ATBD provides physical theory and mathematical procedures for the calculations used to produce the data products. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- This documentation contains the software code used to generate the cropland extent data. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION