Global spatially explicit assessment of cropland sustainability circa 2020

This dataset supports the manuscript “How far are global croplands from environmental sustainability?” (Guilbert et al.), currently under submission. It provides spatially explicit output files for global cropland (22 crop categories) and five environmental pressures evaluated in the analysis: greenhouse gas emissions, nitrogen application, human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), species richness loss and freshwater withdrawal. The resolution is 5 arc minute, across the global land area, for the period around year 2020. Each file contains three variables: (i) the environmental pressure, (ii) the corresponding sustainability boundary (limit), and (iii) a sustainability indicator defined as the ratio of pressure to the boundary, where values greater than 1 indicate exceedance of the sustainable limit. Files are provided in NetCDF format, with units and metadata documented in the file attributes. Units are identical for both the environmental pressure and the corresponding sustainability boundary: GHG emissions (tCO₂e), nitrogen application (kg N), human appropriation of net primary production (tC), species richness loss (%), and freshwater withdrawal (km³). The 22 final crop categories used in this study and their correspondence with the 46 crop categories from the MapSPAM dataset is provided in the file LU_SPAM2020_correspondence.xlsx. All scripts required to reproduce the outputs are also provided. A README file describes how to run them.