California Cropland Index Model for Solar Siting 2026-2027

The California Energy Commission's Draft Cropland Index Model for the 2026-2027 Integrated Resource Plan assesses land suitability for solar development. It integrates variables on soil quality, official farmland designations, and current crop existence from California Statewide Crop Mapping. The model excludes grazing lands and is specifically applied to solar technology siting.

Use Cases

• Train a land classification model using soil quality variables like CA Revised Storie Index and Electrical Conductivity to predict high-value cropland.
• Analyze spatial correlations between Prime Farmland, Unique Farmland designations and current crop existence data for agricultural preservation planning.
• Build a suitability score model for solar project siting by weighting soil quality and farmland designation variables.
• Validate the California Statewide Crop Mapping layer by cross-referencing it with soil conductivity and sodium adsorption ratio data.

Strengths

• Model incorporates multiple authoritative California-specific data sources for soil, farmland, and crop mapping.
• Updated for the 2026-2027 planning cycle with the most recent versions of its input datasets.
• Data is provided in 10 different formats, including ARCGIS GEOSERVICES REST API, CSV, and GEOJSON, enhancing accessibility.

Limitations

• Geographic scope is limited to California and excludes statewide information on grazing lands or rangelands.
• The dataset's specific row count, column count, and spatial resolution are not provided in the input.
• As a draft model for a future planning cycle (2026-2027), its outputs are preliminary and subject to change.

Provenance

Source

State of California, likely the California Energy Commission (CEC).

Collection Method

Model-based integration of multiple input datasets including soil indices, farmland designations, and crop mapping.

Time Range

Developed for the 2026-2027 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

Freshness

Last updated on March 23, 2026, indicating it is a forward-looking projection.

Geography

State of California, United States.