GFSAD30SAAFGIRCE: Cropland Extent for South Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran at 30m Resolution

Cropland extent data for South Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran for the nominal year 2015 at 30-meter resolution. The NASA MEaSUREs program product was generated using a Random Forest classifier on Landsat 8 OLI and SRTM elevation data. Each file covers a 10° by 10° area and classifies land into cropland, non-cropland, and water bodies.

Use Cases

• Baseline mapping for agricultural policy and food security assessments based on cropland extent classification.
• Monitoring land use change over time based on the 2015 nominal year snapshot.
• Integrating cropland data with hydrological models for water sustainability studies based on the described use in agricultural water studies.
• Training or validating machine learning models for land cover classification based on the use of a Random Forest supervised classifier.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA, an authoritative source for Earth science data.
• Provides 30-meter spatial resolution, which suggests a relatively detailed land cover product.
• Covers a specific 10° by 10° tiling system for the defined region of South Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Limitations

• Known issues, constraints, and limitations are documented but require accessing a separate ATBD document (page 18).
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The data represents a snapshot for 2015; freshness for current applications should be verified.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) MEaSUREs program.

Collection Method

Generated using a pixel-based Random Forest classifier on Landsat 8 OLI and SRTM Version 3 elevation data.

Time Range

Nominal year 2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:54:19.838414; freshness should be verified.

Geography

South Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran.