Biography
Biography: Prasad Thenkabail
Abstract
Monitoring of global croplands (GCs) is imperative for ensuring sustainable water and food security for the people of the world in the Twenty-first Century. However, the currently available cropland products suffer from major limitations such as: (1) Absence of precise spatial location of the cropped areas; (b) Coarse resolution nature of the map products and their significant uncertainties in areas, locations, and detail; (b) Uncertainties in differentiating irrigated areas from rainfed areas; and (c) Absence of crop types and cropping intensities. This research aims overcome the above mentioned limitations through development of a set of GFSAD30products using multi-resolution time-series remotely sensed data and a suite of automated cropland mapping algorithms (ACMAs). The products include: 1. Cropland extent/area, 2. Crop types with focus on the 8 types that occupy 70% of the global cropland areas, 3. Irrigated versus rainfed croplands, and 4. Cropping intensities: single, double, triple, and continuous cropping. The project is funded by NASA MEaSUREs and makes significant contributions to Earth System Data Records (ESDRs), Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Agriculture and Water Societal Beneficial Areas, and GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM). The project products are released through a single window link: http://geography.wr.usgs.gov/science/croplands/as well as over: https://croplands.org/