CROPGRIDS

CROPGRIDS is a comprehensive global, geo-referenced dataset providing information on areas for 173 crops circa the year 2020, at a resolution of 0.05˚ (~5.55 km at the equator). It represents a major update of the Monfreda et al. (2008) dataset. CROPGRIDS updates Monfreda et al. (2008) through the careful evaluation of 26 published gridded datasets covering more recent crop information at regional, national, and global levels, largely over the period 2015 – 2020. The new product successfully updates the area extent for 80 of the 175 crops originally covered, representing an update to 1.2 billion hectares of crop area (i.e., 81% of the total cropland included in CROPGRIDS). CROPGRIDS carries forward the crop type maps originally in Monfreda et al. (2008) for 93 crops as more recent information for these crops is not available. We compared CROPGRIDS harvested area of individual crops against independent national and subnational data from 36 National Statistical Offices (NSOs), national-level crop area data for more than 180 countries and territories from FAOSTAT, as well as geospatially, against a newly available high-resolution (30 m) cropland agreement map (Tubiello et al., 2023). Results indicated robustness against the available independent information, with CROPGRIDS world total harvested and crop areas around 1.5 billion hectares. To the best of our knowledge, CROPGRIDS represents the most comprehensive update of previous work on the subject area, offering a new benchmark of global gridded harvested and crop area data for the year circa 2020. <br> For more information, please refer to: Tang, F. H. M., Nguyen, T. H., Conchedda, G., Casse, L., Tubiello, F. N., and Maggi, F.: CROPGRIDS: A global geo-referenced dataset of 173 crops circa 2020, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-130, in review, 2023.