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National Agricultural Statistics Service
Research and Development Division
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of the Director
Census and Survey Research Branch
Data Quality | Statistical Methodology
Geospatial Information Branch
Area Frame | Spatial Analysis

Announcement1:  The 2012 national CDL is released @ 30m.

Announcement2:   Please visit/bookmark the CropScape portal at http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape to visualize, interact, and download the CDL.

Announcement3:   Users can download the 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 CDL's & the 2012 Confidence Layer & the 2012 Cultivated Layer from National Downloads. Warning many file sizes > 2gb.

2012

  • Published from IGARSS 2012 Conference by Claire Boryan, Zhengwei Yang, and Liping Di Derving 2011 Cultivated Land Cover Data Sets Using USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Historic Cropland Data Layers. Posted 10/24/12.
  • Published from Agricultural Systems by Dave Johnson A 2010 map estimate of annually tilled cropland within the conterminous United States. Posted 10/24/12.
  • Published from the Wisconsin State Cartographers Office by Lee Ebinger 133 map categories! How the US Department of Agriculture solved a complex cartographic design problem. Posted 4/25/12.
  • Published from June 2012, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture by Weiguo Han, Zhengwei Yang, Liping Di, and Richard Mueller CropScape: A Web service based application for exploring and disseminating US conterminous geospatial cropland data products for decision support. Posted 4/9/12.
  • FY 2011 Report to Congress on the Implementation of The E-Government Act of 2002/Department of Agriculture CropScape – Linking Space and Agriculture. Posted 4/9/12.
  • NASS press release NASS Releases New Geospatial Data in CropScape. Posted 2/15/12.

    2011

  • Published from August 2011 GeoCarto Intl by Claire Boryan, Zhengwei Yang, Rick Mueller, and Mike Craig Monitoring US Agriculture: the US Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Cropland Data Layer Program. Posted 1/30/2012.
  • USDA Blog USDA Celebrates the United States’ Entry into the Open Government Partnership. Posted 9/20/2011.
  • USDA Blog Farm Internet Access on the Rise, Now Let’s Connect. Posted 8/16/2011.
  • On September 14, 2011 the CropScape-Cropland Data Layer Project Team received a group achievement award at the 63rd Annual USDA Secretary's Honor Awards. Posted 9/15/11.
  • USDA Blog New Geospatial Data Service Now Available. Posted 1/11/2011.
  • NASS releases the new CDL visualization portal CropScape.
  • NASS press release NASS Launches New CropScape Geospatial Data Service. Posted 1/10/2011.
  • All CDL products are downloadable from the Geospatial Data Gateway. Instructions for downloading from the Data Gateway are posted. Please note all historical CDL products created for one state are delivered via one download.

    • 2010

  • Published from November 2010, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing by David M. Johnson and Richard Mueller titled "The 2009 Cropland Data Layer".


    For questions and/or comments please contact the Geospatial Information Branch.

     

    • The Cropland Data Layer (CDL) contains crop specific digital data layers, suitable for use in geographic information systems (GIS) applications.  The CDL Program annually focuses on producing digital categorized geo-referenced output products using imagery from the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) Deimos-1 and UK-2 provided by Astrium - GEO-Information Services and historically Resourcesat-1 AWiFS and the Landsat 5 TM satellites.  The CDL Program represents a cooperative venture between three USDA Agencies (Headquarters units of NASS, the Foreign Agriculture Service IPA group and the Farm Service Agency/ Aerial Photography Field Office) plus in-state agreements between NASS Field Offices and their respective state government or university partners. There are numerous historical research reports with more detailed information on NASS's general uses of remote sensing and GIS.

    The Cropland Data Layer product contains statewide categorizations of ortho-rectified mosaicked images using See5 software and are exported to GeoTIFF format.   Limitations of this data are declared.   

    Visit our cooperators sites to see how they are using and enhancing the Cropland Data Layer products.
    An independent CDL accuracy assessment performed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute of Natural Resources Sustainability titled: Assessment and Potential of the 2007 USDA-NASS Cropland Data Layer for Statewide Annual Land Cover Applications

    A CDL History White Paper: A brief history from 1971 to present