Global maps

WorldCereal Phase I concluded with the production of the first dynamic set of seasonally-updated temporary crops, crop type and irrigation maps at 10-meter spatial resolution and global scale. The different individual products are defined in the next paragraphs.

In WorldCereal, temporary crops have been defined as crops with a less-than-one-year growing cycle which must be newly sown or planted for further production after the harvest (FAO, 2023). Sugar cane, asparagus and cassava are also considered as temporary crops. The WorldCereal 2021 temporary crop maps exclude perennial crops as well as (temporary) pastures. These maps are generated once a year.

Next to this annual product, WorldCereal provides several season-specific products including maize, winter cereals, spring cereals, active cropland and active irrigation. Seasonal products are always generated at the end of a growing season. Check out the table below to learn more about which products are generated in the different seasons. Seasonal products are always masked with the annual temporary crop extent product, meaning that only pixels identified as temporary crops will be classified by these algorithms.

The WorldCereal crop type products provide binary maps for the maize and wheat growing seasons showing where maize and cereals are grown. Cereals include wheat, barley and rye, which belong to the Triticeae tribe. These crops were grouped together because their spectral signatures and growing seasons were too similar to reliably distinguish them at a global scale.

The WorldCereal active cropland product indicates whether a pixel identified as temporary crops has been actively cultivated during a specific growing season. For a pixel to be labeled as “active”, a full crop growth cycle (sowing, growing, senescence and harvesting) needs to take place within the designated time period. Note that this active marker is not crop-type specific and will capture other crop types aside from cereals and maize as long as they show a similar growing season. This also means in practice that any crop grown (slightly) outside the predefined growing seasons will not be flagged as active cropland in any of the seasons covered by the system.

Seasonally actively irrigated cropland is defined by the WorldCereal system as a piece of land that is extensively irrigated during a specific growing season where, without irrigation applied at regular intervals, crop growth would be significantly reduced or impossible. Incidental irrigation, such as irrigation that has been applied only during the sowing period of a crop, is not translated to actively irrigated cropland.

The WorldCereal 2021 products can be viewed in the WorldCereal interactive viewer and can be downloaded through:

-    The WorldCereal Zenodo repository
-    openEO
-    Google Earth Engine
-    VITO’s Terrascope platform
 

Interested users should bear in mind that each global map is comprised of a collection of regional maps, each characterized by its own definition of agricultural seasons. This means in practice that maps from neighboring zones cannot be readily compared and utmost care should be taken when interpreting the global maps as a whole. More information on the WorldCereal seasons and agro-ecological zones (AEZ) can be found here.

Below you can find screenshots of the different global products at decreased spatial resolution.