Statewide Almond Mapping
Problem:
In analyzing predicted yields developed by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA-NASS), the Almond Board of California (ABC) realized the acreage being reported through a survey methodology was not providing an accurate account of almond orchards.
In 2011, Land IQ was contracted by the ABC for the purpose of mapping individual almond orchards. These efforts began with a 2-year mapping pilot study in Madera County and was then expanded to a statewide spatial database of almond orchards for the 2014 crop year utilizing digital image products from the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) and Landsat as well as distributed ground truth data.
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The ABC prioritized this work into their Accelerated Innovation Management (AIM) program, which represented a multi-year effort to create sound, science-based, foundational information for decision-making in the global almond marketplace and provided the ABC with tools for better planning in a rapidly changing industry.
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Incorporation of the mapping into AIM allowed the ABC to perform a retrospective analysis of acreage in 2010 and 2012, and then biennial mapping through 2018. Beginning in 2019, the ABC began annual mapping, with an initial deliverable in April that includes bearing acreage and removals from the previous summer to spring of the mapping year and a final deliverable in November that includes a non-bearing estimate. The ABC disseminates the mapping through a formal report, and a web mapping application. Both the reports and web map are publicly available and can be viewed at the Access Publicly Available Data link below.
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The 2021 crop year brought extreme drought and significant water supply issues, forcing growers to make decisions related to reducing water usage and accelerating planned removals. As a result, Land IQ performed an additional analysis to determine how many acres were removed between March 31, 2021 and August 31, 2021, in addition to
Solution:
identifying orchards that were in various degrees of abandonment. This task has become a regular part of the annual mapping project.
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The effort represented the most comprehensive and accurate mapping of a significant perennial crop ever conducted. Almond production in the state of California in 2025 comprised 1,505,997 total acres and is represented by 43,882 individual orchards with an average orchard size of 33 acres. The mapping accuracy was 97.5% based on an independent validation dataset. Individual orchards ranged in size from less than 2 acres to 555 acres.
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This spatial account of almond orchards has allowed the ABC to track trends in plantings and removals and conduct additional spatial analytics including proximity analyses related to regulatory programs, water supply reliability analyses, and yield prediction.
Statewide Almond Mapping
Differentiators
Land IQ’s almond mapping does not depend on grower survey methods that are often incomplete or entirely miss new plantings, but do consider removals or potentially abandoned acreage.
Land IQ’s almond mapping is conducted in season, providing the most up to date mapping available.
Land IQ’s almond mapping is conducted twice a year, taking into account removed, stressed and abandoned orchards.
