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Description

The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (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.

Product Summary

Platforms
DEM,
LANDSAT-5,
LANDSAT-8,
Sentinel-2A
Instruments
OLI,
Sentinel-2 MSI,
TM
Spatial Extent
N: 40.10861 S: -50.108476 E: 70.001218 W: -37
Spatial Resolution
30 Meters x 30 Meters
Geographic Region
AFRICA
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2013-01-01 to 2016-06-30
Temporal Resolution
4 Year
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
Western Geographic Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI/USGS/WGSC)
Concept ID
c2763261633-lpcloud
Data State
COMPLETE
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Xiong, J., Thenkabail, P., Tilton, J., Gumma, M., Teluguntla, P., Congalton, R., Yadav, K., Dungan, J., Oliphant, A., Poehnelt, J., Smith, C., & Massey, R. (2017). NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) Cropland Extent 2015 Africa 30 m V001 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/GFSAD/GFSAD30AFCE.001 Date Accessed: 2025-06-18

Additional Citation

Teluguntla, P., Thenkabail, P.S., Xiong, J., Gumma, M.K., Giri, C., Milesi, C., Ozdogan, M., Congalton, R., Tilton, J., Sankey, T.R., Massey, R., Phalke, A., and Yadav, K. 2015. Global Food Security Support Analysis Data at Nominal 1 km (GFSAD1km) Derived from Remote Sensing in Support of Food Security in the Twenty-First Century: Current Achievements and Future Possibilities, Chapter 6. In Thenkabail, P.S., (Editor-in-Chief), 2015. 'Remote Sensing Handbook' (Volume II): Land Resources Monitoring, Modeling, and Mapping with Remote Sensing. Taylor and Francis Inc.\CRC Press, Boca Raton, London, New York. ISBN 9781482217957 - CAT# K22130. Pp. 131-160.

Documents

ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD) The ATBD provides physical theory and mathematical procedures for the calculations used to produce the data products.
SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT SOFTWARE DOCUMENTATION This documentation contains the software code used to generate the cropland extent data.
USER'S GUIDE The technical information in the User's Guide enables users to interpret and use the data products.

Learning Resources

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