Land IQ is excited to share a valuable new data resource recently released by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). Land use for the 2018 crop year is now publicly available for viewing and download. The 2018 classification is in addition to the previously released 2014 and 2016 crop years, and categorizes over 15.3 million acres of land use into approximately 50 crop and land use types with 97.6% accuracy. Field by field classification resulted in over 440,000 individually classified polygons with a minimum field size of 0.5-2.0 acres depending on crop type.
Understanding the dynamic nature of agriculture in California, the 2018 dataset now includes up to four crop rotation patterns within each field in the areas of the state where multiple crops are grown on the same field in the same water year. In addition to the new multiple crop classifications, the data set also includes the peak date of vegetative production for the field, as well as the percentage of the field cropped, if not fully planted. These new attributes allow the end use to estimate planting and harvest dates as well as refine crop water use estimates.
While the downloadable dataset contains up to 50 crop and land use classifications, the following table represents a combined summary of DWR master classes represented on DWR’s GIS Map Service:
Land IQ has worked in cooperation with DWR to create publicly available statewide land use maps of agriculture, urban and managed wetlands, among other land use types for 2014, 2016, and now an expanded 2018 comprehensive crop and land use layer. This statewide data resource has been developed to support the needs of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The intent of this work is for all Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to use this data as a consistent foundational land use layer in developing and implementing their groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs), groundwater modeling efforts, compliance monitoring, annual reporting, etc.
Land IQ continues this work with the DWR, to provide these valuable mapping data, with the following mapping data in progress:
2018/2019 Hydrologic Year: Includes multi-cropping, classification is complete and is under review by DWR.
2019/2020 Hydrologic Year: Includes multi-cropping, classification is complete and is under review by DWR.
Keep up with Land IQ for the latest land use data resources!