Multiple factors influence the consistency of cropland datasets in Africa

• Published in: International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation 2020-07, Vol.89, p.102087, Article 102087
• Main Authors: Wei, Yanbing, Lu, Miao, Wu, Wenbin, Ru, Yating
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy assessment; Cropland mapping; Fragmentation; Global land cover; Spatial agreement
• ISSN: 1569-8432; 1872-826X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2020.102087

•The study estimates the consistency of five widely-used cropland datasets in Africa.•Cropland area from GlobeLand30 has the highest fitness with FAO statistics.•The lower agreement has a higher proportion.•Disagreement of the five datasets is 37.9 % in Africa.•Fragmentation, irrigation, and climate are strongly associated with spatial consistency. Accurate geo-information of cropland is critical for food security strategy development and grain production management, especially in Africa continent where most countries are food-insecure. Over the past decades, a series of African cropland maps have been derived from remotely-sensed data, existing comparison studies have shown that inconsistencies with statistics and discrepancies among these products are considerable. Yet, there is a knowledge gap about the factors that influence their consistency. The aim of this study is thus to estimate the consistency of five widely-used cropland datasets (MODIS Collection 5, GlobCover 2009, GlobeLand30, CCI-LC 2010, and Unified Cropland Layer) in Africa, and to explore the effects of several limiting factors (landscape fragmentation, climate and agricultural management) on spatial consistency. The results show that total cropland area for Africa derived from GlobeLand30 has the best fitness with FAO statistics, followed by MODIS Collection 5. GlobCover 2009, CCI-LC 2010, and Unified Cropland Layer have poor performances as indicated by larger deviations from statistics. In terms of spatial consistency, disagreement is about 37.9 % at continental scale, and the disparate proportion even exceeds 50 % in approximately 1/3 of the countries at national scale. We further found that there is a strong and significant correlation between spatial agreement and cropland fragmentation, suggesting that regions with higher landscape fragmentation generally have larger disparities. It is also noticed that places with better consistency are mainly distributed in regions with favorable natural environments and sufficient agricultural management such as well-developed irrigated technology. Proportions of complete agreement are thus located in favorable climate zones including Hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa), Subtropical highland climate (Cwb), and Temperate Mediterranean climate (Csb). The level of complete agreement keeps rising as the proportion of irrigated cropland increases. Spatial agreement among these datasets has the most significant relationship with cropland fragmentat