This dataset is a raster format GeoTIFF representing the percentage of density in each pixel of the crop land coverage. It is part of the Global Land Cover-SHARE (GLC-SHARE) database at the global level created by FAO, Land and Water Division in partnership and with contribution from various partners and institutions.
The crop land dataset includes the following crop classes: herbaceous crops, woody crops and multiple or layered crops.
Herbaceous Crops: The class is composed of a main layer of cultivated herbaceous plants (graminoids or forbs). It includes herbaceous crops used for hay. All the non-perennial crops that do not last for more than two growing seasons and crops like sugar cane where the upper part of the plant is regularly harvested while the root system can remain for more than one year in the field are included in this class.
Woody Crops: The class is composed of a main layer of permanent crops (trees and/or shrub crops) and includes all types of orchards and plantations (fruit trees, coffee and tea plantation, oil palms, rubber plantation, Christmas trees etc.).
Multiple or Layered crops: This class combine different land cover situations:
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Two layers of different crops (woody + herbaceous): A common case is the presence of one layer of woody crops (trees or shrubs) and another layer of herbaceous crop, such as for wheat fields with olive trees in the Mediterranean area and intense horticulture, oasis or typical coastal African agriculture were herbaceous fields are covered by palm trees, etc.
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Presence of one important layer of natural vegetation (mainly trees) that cover one layer of cultivated crops: A typical example are coffee plantations shadowed by natural trees in the equatorial area of Africa.
Supplemental Information:
GLC-SHARE provides a set of major thematic land cover layers resulting by a combination of "best available" high resolution national, regional and/or sub-national land cover databases with the weighted average land cover information derived from large-scale available datasets. The database is produced with a resolution of 30 arc second (1km). The approach implemented is based on the utilization of the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) and SEEA (System of Environmental-Economic Accounting) legend systems for the harmonization of the various global, regional and national land cover legends.
The major benefit of the GLC-SHARE product is its capacity to preserve the existing and available high resolution land cover information at the regional and country level obtained by spatial and multi-temporal source data, integrating them with the best synthesis of global datasets.
Preliminary validation campaign was performed using 1000 random points statistically distributed over each land cover classes.
The database is distributed in the following eleven layers, in raster format (GeoTIFF ), whose pixel values represent the percentage of density coverage in each pixel of the land cover type. The dominant layer, representing the value of the dominant land cover type, is also available along with a legend in LYR ESRI format. Finally, information on each layer's source is retrievable in sources layer, by joining the raster values with an Excel table.
01-Artificial Surfaces
02-CropLand
03-Grassland
04-Tree Covered Area
05-Shrubs Covered Area
06-Herbaceous vegetation, aquatic or regularly flooded
07-Mangroves
08-Sparse vegetation
09-BareSoil
10-Snow and glaciers
11-Waterbodies
Contact points:
Contact: Land and Water Officer FAO-NRL
Data lineage:
The land cover database is validated only using the high resolution remote sensing imagery present in Google Earth.
Resource constraints:
Reproduction and dissemination of material contained in GLC-SHARE Beta-Release v1.0 or educational, research, personal or other noncommercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright holders, provided FAO are fully acknowledged. No part of GLC-SHARE Beta-Release v1.0 data may be downloaded, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means for resale or other commercial purposes without written permission of the copyright holders. If any information or resources on this site are attributed to a site or source external to FAO permission to use must be sought with FAO.
The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. FAO declines all responsibility for errors or deficiencies in the database or software or in the documentation accompanying it, for program maintenance and upgrading as well as for any damage that may arise from them. FAO also declines any responsibility for updating the data and assumes no responsibility for errors and omissions in the data provided. Users are, however, kindly asked to report any errors or deficiencies in this product to FAO.
Online resources:
