The Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a crop-specific land cover data layer created annually for the continental United States using moderate resolution satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground truth. The CDL is created by the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Research and Development Division, Geospatial Information Branch, Spatial Analysis Research Section. For detailed FAQ please visit CropScape and Cropland Data Layers - FAQs. To explore details about the classification accuracies and utility of the data, see state-level omission and commission errors by crop type and year. The asset date is aligned with the calendar year of harvest. For most crops the planted and harvest year are the same. Some exceptions: winter wheat is unique, as it is planted in the prior year. A hay crop like alfalfa could have been planted years prior. For winter wheat the data also have a class called "Double Crop Winter Wheat/Soybeans". Some mid-latitude areas of the US have conditions such that a second crop (usually soybeans) can be planted immediately after the harvest of winter wheat and itself still be harvested within the same year. So for mapping winter wheat areas use both classes (use both values 24 and 26). While the CDL date is aligned with year of harvest, the map itself is more representative of what was planted. In other words, a small percentage of fields on a given year will not be harvested. Some non-agricultural categories are duplicate due to two very different epochs in methodology. The non-ag codes 63-65 and 81-88 are holdovers from the older methodology and will only appear in CDLs from 2007 and earlier. The non-ag codes from 111-195 are from the current methodology which uses the USGS NLCD as non-ag training and will only appear in CDLs 2007 and newer. 2007 was a transition year so there may be both sets of categories in the 2007 national product but will not appear within the same state. Note: The 2024 CDL only has the data band. The cultivated and confidence bands are yet to be released by the provider.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is an annual raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer produced using satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground reference data. The program began in 1997 with limited coverage and in 2008 forward expanded coverage to the entire Continental United States. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer.

The geospatial data product called the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is hosted on CropScape (https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/). The CDL is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer created annually for the continental United States using moderate resolution satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground truth.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer.

This is the 2007 NASS USDA CDL dataset for Minnesota. The dataset was clipped and downloaded using the USDA NASS CropScape online web application: http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) did minimal processing on this dataset to make more useful for Minnesota-specific work. The lineage section describes these steps taken, but the full description of the Cropland Data Layer can be found in the NASS USDA Metadata.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) releases the annual Cropland Data Layer (CDL) via the NASS CropScape geospatial portal. The CDL product depicts agricultural land cover over the Continental United States at 30 meters resolution. CropScape includes historical data dating back to 1997 for some locales. The CDL is an annual raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer produced using satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground truth collected during the current growing season. The strength and emphasis of CropScape and the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from CropScape or the Cropland Data Layer.Please reference CropScape (https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/) or the official CDL website (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/SARS1a.php) for a list of the available states and years of data and the individual metadata files that contain the technical details. NASS developed both the CropScape and VegScape web services in cooperation with the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Metadata, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and the most current year of data is available free for download at the official website: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/Release/index.php

USDA Cropland Data Layer (CDL). Visit https://dataone.org/datasets/p1810.ds3998_20241030_0303 for complete metadata about this dataset.

The USDA, NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer. The 2010 CDL has a ground resolution of 30 meters. The CDL is produced using satellite imagery from the Landsat 5 TM sensor, Landsat 7 ETM+ sensor, and the Indian Remote Sensing RESOURCESAT-1 (IRS-P6) Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) collected during the current growing season. Some CDL states used additional satellite imagery and ancillary inputs to supplement and improve the classification. These additional sources can include the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED), the USGS National Land Cover Dataset 2001 (NLCD 2001), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 meter 16 day Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites. Agricultural training and validation data are derived from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Common Land Unit (CLU) Program. The NLCD 2001 is used as non-agricultural training and validation data. Please refer to the 'Supplemental_Information' Section of this metadata file for a complete list of all imagery, ancillary data, and training/validation data used to generate this state's CDL. The strength and emphasis of the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer.

This dataset contains summary tables of land cover from the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) for individual stream catchments of the conterminous United States from the National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2.1 (United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2024; McKay and others, 2012). These data were summarized from primarily 30 meter grid cell raster data for the years 2000 through 2022. This data release contains 23 parquet tables that can be linked to the NHD Plus v2 dataset using the COMID unique identifier and a column for each CDL land cover class. From 2008 onwards, these data are available for the conterminous United States. From 2000 to 2007, the CDL is only available for select states. For convenience, an additional parquet table is included with a column for COMID and columns containing a flag indicating whether CDL data exist for each year from 2000 through 2022. Parquet tables can be accessed using the "arrow" package in RStudio. An example command to open a file is: arrow::read_parquet(filepath, "cdl_2000_table.parquet"))

Results and data associated with Lark et al. 2021: Accuracy, Bias, and Improvements in Mapping Crops and Cropland across the United States Using the USDA Cropland Data Layer.

Accuracy data for original, non-aggregated CDL classes are located in the following files:

'NASS_CDL_National_20XX_original_accuracy' files contain each year's data and calculation results for original, non-aggregated CDL classes

'Nationwide_original_CDL_accuracy_2008to2017_w_ref_area' is the nationwide reference producers and users accuracy for average crops, average non-crops, and the individual classes for all years.

'State_level_annual_ref_acreage' is the percent of reference acreage for both crops and non-crops by each state and national total for all years, used for the area-weighting calculations.

Accuracy data for aggregated CDL classes are located in the following files:

'NASS_CDL_National_20XX_superclass_accuracy' files contain tables for each year that include the total and reference acreage of the datasets, the users and producers superclass accuracies for the individual classes, and consolidated crop and consolidated non-crop accuracy, as well as the raw and intermediate data used to calculate these results.

'Annual_CDL_superclass_accuracy_by_state_crop_noncrop' contains the average crop and non-crop superclass accuracies (i.e. the consolidated crop and consolidated non-crop accuracy) for the nation and for the individual states for all years.

Citation: Lark TJ, Schelly IH, Gibbs HK. Accuracy, Bias, and Improvements in Mapping Crops and Cropland across the United States Using the USDA Cropland Data Layer. Remote Sensing. 2021; 13(5):968. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13050968

The USDA, NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer with a ground resolution of 56 meters. The CDL is produced using satellite imagery from the Indian Remote Sensing RESOURCESAT-1 (IRS-P6) Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) collected during the current growing season. Some Cropland Data Layer states used Landsat 5 TM and/or Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery to supplement the classification. Ancillary classification inputs include: the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED), the USGS National Land Cover Dataset 2001 (NLCD 2001), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 meter 16 day Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites. Agricultural training and validation data are derived from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Common Land Unit (CLU) Program. The NLCD 2001 is used as non-agricultural training and validation data. Please refer to the 'Supplemental_Information' Section of this metadata file for a complete list of all imagery, ancillary data, and training/validation data used to generate this state's CDL. The strength and emphasis of the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer.

Link to the ScienceBase Item Summary page for the item described by this metadata record. Service Protocol: Link to the ScienceBase Item Summary page for the item described by this metadata record. Application Profile: Web Browser. Link Function: information

The USDA, NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer. The 2015 CDL has a ground resolution of 30 meters. The CDL is produced using satellite imagery from the Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS sensor and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) DEIMOS-1 and UK2 sensors collected during the current growing season. Some CDL states used additional satellite imagery and ancillary inputs to supplement and improve the classification. These additional sources can include the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED) and the imperviousness and canopy data layers from the USGS National Land Cover Database 2011 (NLCD 2011). Agricultural training and validation data are derived from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Common Land Unit (CLU) Program. The most current version of the NLCD is used as non-agricultural training and validation data. Please refer to the 'Supplemental_Information' Section of this metadata file for a complete list of all imagery, ancillary data, and training/validation data used to generate this state's CDL. The strength and emphasis of the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer.

The Crop Land Data layer (CDL) is a crop-specific land cover classification product of more than 100 crop categories grown in the United States produced by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. The CDL is developed using a supervised land cover classification of satellite imagery.This layer is created from the USA Croplands layer with a filter to limit the layer to the 2019 growing season and the imagery display set to the wheat renderer.

Link to the ScienceBase Item Summary page for the item described by this metadata record. Service Protocol: Link to the ScienceBase Item Summary page for the item described by this metadata record. Application Profile: Web Browser. Link Function: information

Dataset Abstract:

Field-level monitoring of crop types in the United States via the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) has played an important role in improving production forecasts and enabling large-scale study of agricultural inputs and outcomes. Although CDL offers crop type maps across the conterminous US from 2008 onward, such maps are missing in many Midwestern states or are uneven in quality before 2008. To fill these data gaps, we used the now-public Landsat archive and cloud computing services to map corn and soybean at 30m resolution across the US Midwest from 1999-2018. Our training data were CDL from 2008-2018, and we validated the predictions on CDL 1999-2007 where available, county-level crop acreage statistics, and state-level crop rotation statistics. The corn-soybean maps, which we call the Corn-Soy Data Layer (CSDL), are publicly hosted on Google Earth Engine and also available for download on Zenodo.

Summary of Methods:

Using Google Earth Engine, we trained a random forest classifier to classify each pixel of the study area into corn, soybean, and an aggregated "other crops" class. CDL 2008-2018 data were used as labels. The features input to the model were harmonic regression coefficients fit to the NIR, SWIR1, SWIR2, and GCVI bands/indices of time series from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 Surface Reflectance observations. Cloudy pixels were masked out using the pixel_qa band provided with Landsat Surface Reflectance products.

Map Legend:

0 = outside study area

1 = corn

5 = soy

9 = other crop

255 = non-crop (masked by NLCD)

Values were chosen to be consistent with CDL values when possible.

Usage Notes:

We recommend that users consider metrics such as (1) user's and producer's accuracy with CDL and (2) R2 with NASS statistics across space and time to determine in which states/counties and years CSDL is of high quality. This can be done with the CSV file of user's and producer's accuracies included in this Zenodo, and annual county-level statistics and example code we have included in our repo at https://github.com/LobellLab/csdl.

Updates:

March 1, 2021: Fixed an issue where 255 (non-crop) values were represented as NAs instead. CSDL now contains the 255 values representing non-crop.

October 20, 2020: Fixed projection issues in the previous version. The CSDL projection now matches that of CDL.

July 13, 2020: We revised how we used NLCD to mask out non-crop pixels from our maps. Instead of using one cropland mask (the union of cropland across all NLCD maps) for all years of CSDL, we used a different cropland mask (the last available NLCD) for each year of CSDL. We also reprojected the CSDL maps to the same projection as CDL to make it easier for users to transition between or combine the two datasets.

USDA Cropland Data Layer (CDL)

The USDA-NASS 2000 North Dakota Cropland Data Layer is a raster, geo-referenced, categorized land cover data layer produced using satellite imagery from the Thematic Mapper (TM) instrument on Landsat 5 and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) on Landsat 7. The imagery was collected between the dates of April 23, 2000 and September 15, 2000. The approximate scale is 1:100,000 with a ground resolution of 30 meters by 30 meters. The North Dakota data layer is aggregated to 17 standardized categories for display purposes with the emphasis being agricultural land cover. This is part of an annual series in which several states are categorized annually based on the extensive field observations collected during the annual NASS June Agricultural Survey. However, no farmer reported data is included or derivable on the Cropland Data Layer CD-ROM.

Constraints:
There are NO copyright restrictions with either the NASS Cropland categorized imagery or ESRI's ArcExplorer software included on the CD-Rom. The NASS Cropland categorized imagery is considered public domain and FREE to redistribute. However, NASS would appreciate acknowledgment or credit for the usage of our categorized imagery. Users of our Cropland Data Layer (CDL) and associated raster and vector data files are solely responsible for interpretations made from these products. The CDL is provided "as is". USDA-NASS does not warrant results you may obtain by using the Cropland Data Layer. Feel free to contact our staff at (HQ_RD_OD@nass.usda.gov) if technical questions arise in the use of our Cropland Data Layer. NASS does provide considerable metadata on the CDL in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) section on this CDL website, and on the ordered CD's. Also, there are substantial statistical performance measures by Analysis District within a State on the Landsat data categorization accuracies for each CD for each year. Not to be used for navigation, for informational purposes only. See full disclaimer for more information.

The USDA-NASS 2002 North Dakota Cropland Data Layer is a raster, geo-referenced, categorized land cover data layer produced using satellite imagery from the Thematic Mapper (TM) instrument on Landsat 5 and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) on Landsat 7. The imagery was collected between the dates of June 15, 2002 and August 20, 2002. The approximate scale is 1:100,000 with a ground resolution of 30 meters by 30 meters. The North Dakota data layer is aggregated to 16 standardized categories for display purposes with the emphasis being agricultural land cover. This is part of an annual series in which several states are categorized annually based on the extensive field observations collected during the annual NASS June Agricultural Survey. However, no farmer reported data is included or derivable on the Cropland Data Layer CD-ROM.

Constraints:
Users of our Cropland Data Layer (CDL) and associated raster and vector data files are solely responsible for interpretations made from these products. The CDL is provided "as is". USDA-NASS does not warrant results you may obtain by using the Cropland Data Layer. Feel free to contact our staff at (HQ_RD_OD@nass.usda.gov) if technical questions arise in the use of our Cropland Data Layer. NASS does provide considerable metadata and substantial statistical performance measures in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) section on the CDL website and on the CD-ROM and/or DVD. Not to be used for navigation, for informational purposes only. See full disclaimer for more information.

The USDA, NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer. The 2013 CDL has a ground resolution of 30 meters. The CDL is produced using satellite imagery from the Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS sensor, Landsat 7 ETM+ sensor, and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) DEIMOS-1 and UK2 sensors collected during the current growing season. Some CDL states used additional satellite imagery and ancillary inputs to supplement and improve the classification. These additional sources can include the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED), the imperviousness and canopy data layers from the USGS National Land Cover Database 2006 (NLCD 2006), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 meter 16 day Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites. Agricultural training and validation data are derived from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Common Land Unit (CLU) Program. The NLCD 2006 is used as non-agricultural training and validation data. Please refer to the 'Supplemental_Information' Section of this metadata file for a complete list of all imagery, ancillary data, and training/validation data used to generate this state's CDL. The strength and emphasis of the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer.

Constraints:
Users of the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) are solely responsible for interpretations made from these products. The CDL is provided 'as is' and the USDA, NASS does not warrant results you may obtain using the Cropland Data Layer. Contact our staff at (HQ_RD_OD@nass.usda.gov) if technical questions arise in the use of the CDL. NASS does maintain a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) section on the CDL website at http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/Cropland/SARS1a.htm Not to be used for navigation, for informational purposes only. See full disclaimer for more information.

The following is excerpted from the metadata provided by NASS (USDA) for the source data set CDL_2012_CLIP_20131230093625_434373848.tif: "The USDA, NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer. The 2012 CDL has a ground resolution of 30 meters. The CDL is produced using satellite imagery from the Landsat 5 TM sensor, Landsat 7 ETM+ sensor, and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) DEIMOS-1 and UK2 sensors collected during the current growing season. "Some CDL states used additional satellite imagery and ancillary inputs to supplement and improve the classification. These additional sources can include the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED), the USGS National Land Cover Database 2006 (NLCD 2006), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 meter 16 day Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites. "Agricultural training and validation data are derived from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Common Land Unit (CLU) Program. The NLCD 2006 is used as non-agricultural training and validation data. Please refer to the 'Supplemental_Information' Section of this metadata file for a complete list of all imagery, ancillary data, and training/validation data used to generate this state's CDL. The strength and emphasis of the CDL is agricultural land cover. Please note that no farmer reported data are derivable from the Cropland Data Layer."