An annual cropland extent dataset for Africa at 30 m spatial resolution from 2000 to 2022
<p>Accurate cropland mapping is essential for understanding agricultural dynamics in Africa and critical for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as Zero Hunger. Large-scale cropland mapping encounters several challenges, including the varying landscape characteristics of cropla...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Earth System Science Data |
| Online Access: | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/3777/2025/essd-17-3777-2025.pdf |
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| Summary: | <p>Accurate cropland mapping is essential for understanding agricultural dynamics in Africa and critical for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as Zero Hunger. Large-scale cropland mapping encounters several challenges, including the varying landscape characteristics of cropland across different regions, extended cultivation periods, and limited availability of reference data. This study develops a 30 m resolution African annual cropland distribution (namely AFCD) dataset spanning the years 2000 to 2022. To extract this large-scale cropland distribution data, we employed random forest (RF) classification and continuous change-detection (CCD) algorithms on the Google Earth Engine platform. Robust training samples were generated, and a locally adaptive model was applied for cropland extraction. The final output consists of annual binary crop/non-crop maps from 2000 to 2022. Independent validation samples from numerous third-party sources confirm that the map's accuracy is 0.86 <span class="inline-formula">±</span> 0.01. A comparison of the cropland area estimates from AFCD with those of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for Africa yielded an <span class="inline-formula"><i>R</i><sup>2</sup></span> value of 0.86. According to our estimates, Africa's cropland expanded from <span class="inline-formula">1.9435×10<sup>8</sup></span> ha in 2000 to <span class="inline-formula">2.1092×10<sup>8</sup></span> ha in 2022, marking a net increase of 8.53 %. Prior to 2005, changes in Africa's cropland area were gradual, but after 2006, there has been a marked acceleration in cropland expansion. Despite this continued growth, Africa also experienced significant cropland abandonment. By 2018, abandoned cropland accounted for 11.52 % of the total active cropland area. AFCD also<span id="page3778"/> avoided the misclassification of buildings, roads, and trees surrounding cropland common in existing products. The study further highlights the unique advantage of AFCD in providing a dynamic annual cropland dataset at 30 m resolution for Africa. This dataset is a crucial resource for understanding the spatial–temporal dynamics of cropland and can support policies on food security and sustainable land management. The cropland dataset is available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14920706">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14920706</a> (Lou et al., 2025).</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1866-3508 1866-3516 |