Global Food Security-Support Analysis Data at 30 m (GFSAD)
Science Center Objects
The GFSAD30 is a NASA funded project to provide high resolution global cropland data and their water use that contributes towards global food security in the twenty-first century. The GFSAD30 products are derived through multi-sensor remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat, MODIS, AVHRR), secondary data, and field-plot data and aims at documenting cropland dynamics from 1990 to 2017.
Monitoring global croplands is imperative for ensuring sustainable water and food security to the people of the world in the Twenty-first Century. The currently available cropland products suffer from major limitations such as:
- Absence of precise spatial location of the cropped areas;
- Coarse resolution nature of the map products with significant uncertainties in areas, locations, and detail;
- Uncertainties in differentiating irrigated areas from rainfed areas;
- Absence of crop types and cropping intensities; and
- Absence of a dedicated web\data portal for the dissemination of cropland products.
Thereby, the overarching goal of GFSAD30 project is to produce consistent and unbiased estimates of global agricultural cropland products such as:
1) Cropland extent\area;
2) Crop types with focus on 8 crops that occupy 70% of the global cropland areas;
3) Irrigated versus rainfed;
4) Cropping intensities: single, double, triple, and continuous cropping;
5) Cropland change over space and time: 1990-2017.
Once the above products are established, other products such as the following can be derived using the above products and certain other inputs:
6) Crop productivity (productivity per unit of land; kg\m2)
7) Water productivity (crop per drop or productivity per unit of water; kg\m3).
For additional information and data, go to Croplands.org
Cropland Percent to Total Global Cropland
Cropland Percent to Country Land Area
Cropland per Capita
Cropland by Continent
Cropland Percent of Land Area by Continent
GFSAD30 Final Mosaic