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Extracting Trusted Pixels from Historical Cropland
Data Layer Using Crop Rotation Patterns: A Case
Study in Nebraska, USA
Chen Zhang†‡ , Liping Di∗† ‡, Li Lin† ‡, Liying Guo†
†Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
‡Department of Geography and Geoinformation Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Email: {czhang11, ldi*, llin2, lguo2}@gmu.edu
Abstract—It is still a challenge to generate the timely crop
cover map at large geographic area due to the lack of reliable
ground truths at early growing season. This paper introduces an
efficient method to extract “trusted pixels” from the historical
Cropland Data Layer (CDL) data using crop rotation patterns,
which can be used to replace the actual ground truth in the crop
mapping and other agricultural applications. A case study in
the Nebraska state of USA is demonstrated. The common crop
rotation patterns of four major crop types, corn, soybeans, winter
wheat, and alfalfa, are compared and analyzed. The experiment
results show a considerable number of pixels in CDL following
the certain crop sequence during the past decade. Each observed
crop type has at least one reliable crop rotation pattern. Based on
the reliable crop rotation patterns, a great proportion of pixels
can be correctly mapped a year ahead of the release of current-
year CDL product. These trusted pixels can be potentially used
to label training samples for crop type classification at early
growing season.
Index Terms—Crop rotation, Crop Mapping, Land use classi-
fication, Cropland Data Layer
I. INTRODUCTION
Ground truth is a crucial component of agricultural land
use classification and modeling. An accurate crop cover map
is commonly produced based on the reliable ground truth
information. For example, Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is an
annual product providing a massive amount of field-level (30-
meter spatial resolution) land use information with overall 95%
accuracy for the entire Contiguous United States (CONUS)
[1], which has been used in many studies such as LULC
change [2], flood mapping [3]–[5], national-scale cultivated
area estimation [6], and crop time series modeling [7]. The
procedure of CDL is based on a large number of reliable
ground truths and the surveys from the farm agency. However,
even though the internal use may be as early as mid to
late growing season, the current-year CDL product is usually
released for public use in the early of following year. A
common issue for the in-season crop mapping is the lack of
ground truth at early growing season. Thus an efficient way to
gather ground truth information for the in-season agricultural
applications is needed.
As a common agricultural practice, crop rotation has been
widely used around the world since thousand years ago.
∗corresponding author
The long-term crop rotation can affect crop yield as well
as soil quality, such as fertility and soil physical/chemical
properties [8]–[11]. Meanwhile, crop rotation information was
used to support crop mapping. In [12], an approach for remote
sensing-based regional crop rotation mapping was proposed.
In [13], a Markov-based model of crop rotation was presented
which is able to predict the early crop map without the actual
remote sensing imagery. CropRota, a crop rotation modeling
framework, was implemented to support agricultural land use
assessment and management [14]. Based on the information
of cropping sequence, we may find some reliable crop rotation
patterns from the historical CDL time series. Then using these
patterns to predict the crop type of cropland that follows the
regular planting cycles. Once the latest CDL product becomes
available, a map for the “trusted pixels” of CDL can be created
even before the beginning of a growing season. These pixels
can be used to make up the lack of ground truth at early
growing season.
This study introduces an innovative method to extract
trusted pixels from the historical CDL data based on crop
rotation. Several common crop rotation patterns of major
crop types in the Nebraska state of USA are investigated
and evaluated. The accuracy and amount of trusted pixels
for each crop rotation pattern is compared and analyzed.
Section II introduces the data, study area, and method of
trusted pixel extraction. Section III assesses the common crop
rotation patterns in the study area and illustrates the map of
trusted pixels. Section IV discusses the experiment results.
Conclusions and future works are given in the section V.
II. ME TH OD S
A. Study Area
This paper demonstrates a case study in Nebraska, a mid-
western state in the United States which lies in the western
part of the Corn Belt region. It is one of the top agriculture
production state in the United States with agricultural land of
45.2 million acres, which takes 91% of the state’s total land
area. The crop cover map and the land use information of
the study area in 2017 are shown in Figure 1. The statistics
show that corn and soybean are two dominant crop types in
the Nebraska state. Besides, winter wheat and alfalfa account
for 2% of total land area each. Other crop types, such as
Preprint submitted to 8th International Conference on Agro-Geoinformatics (July 2019)
TABLE I
EXA MPL ES O F CROP ROTATIO N PATTER NS F OR COR N
Cycle Pattern 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
1-year A C C C C C C C C C C C C Corn
2-year A-B C NC C NC C NC C NC C NC C NC Corn
3-year A-B-B C NC NC C NC NC C NC NC C NC NC Corn
A-A-B C C NC C C NC C C NC C C NC Corn
A-B-A C NC C C NC C C NC C C NC C Corn
sorghum, dry beans, millet, and oats, account for a very small
proportion of all croplands. In this paper, we will focus on the
four dominant crop types (corn, soybean, winter wheat, and
alfalfa) in Nebraska.
Fig. 1. Statistics of major agricultural land use classes of Nebraska, USA, in
2017 (data from USDA NASS)
B. Data
CDL is the major source used in this study. It is the annual
product that covers the entire CONUS at 30-meter spatial
resolution from 2008 to present and some states from 1997
to 2007. In this study, we adopt the 16 years of CDL data
(2002-2017) for the study area. Figure 2 shows the map of
2017 CDL data for Nebraska state.
Fig. 2. The 2017 Cropland Data Layer of Nebraska, USA
C. Trusted Pixel Extraction
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a sequence of
different types of crops on the same cropland. Based on the
crop rotation patterns, the crop type of the subsequent year can
be predicted. Table I summarizes five common crop rotation
patterns and demonstrates how to predict the crop type from
the historical crop rotation information. It is marked with “C”
if the crop type of the pixel for the corresponding year is corn,
or “NC” if it is non-corn.
The “trusted pixels” refers pixels that consistently following
some certain crop rotation patterns in the historical CDL data.
Technically, the crop type in the subsequent growing season
is predicted by maximizing a priori probability based on the
historical crop rotation information. In this paper, the accuracy
and amount of pixels for four major crop types in Nebraska
(corn, soybean, winter wheat, and alfalfa), which are derived
from each crop rotation pattern, are assessed and compared.
According to the planting cycle, the five crop rotation
patterns described in the table can be divided into three
types: monocropping (1-year) pattern, alternate cropping (2-
year) pattern, and three-year planting cycle crop rotation
pattern. Specifically, the monocropping refers to the practice
of continuously growing a single crop on the same land unit.
The alternate cropping follows the two-year planting cycle that
growing a specific crop type on the same land every other year.
Similar with the alternate cropping, the three-year planting
cycle crop rotation is the practice of continuously growing the
specific crop type once (or twice) every three years.
To assess the reliability of the crop rotation pattern, a new
metric, Trusted Pixel Accuracy (TPA), is developed. TPA
measures the agreement of trusted pixels with the original
CDL pixels, which can be expressed as:
T rustedP ixelAccur acy =
GoodT rustedP ixel
T rustedP ixel (1)
where the “Good Trusted Pixel” is the amount of correctly
predicted trusted CDL pixels and the “Trusted Pixel” is the
amount of total trusted pixels. The value of TPA is ranging
from 0 to 1.
III. EXP ER IM EN TS
A. Assessment of Crop Rotation Patterns
This section presents a group of experiments to assess
common crop rotation patterns in Nebraska. The procedure of
assessment includes the following steps: (1) extracting pixels
that follow the specific crop rotation pattern from the historical
CDL data; (2) calculating the TPA and amount of the pixels;
(3) analyzing the impact of the change of the historical CDL
record on the result; and (4) determining the reliable crop
rotation patterns with high TPA.
(a) Corn (b) Soybeans (c) Winter Wheat (d) Alfalfa
Fig. 3. Change of trusted pixel accuracy and amount for the monocropping pattern
(a) Corn (b) Soybeans (c) Winter Wheat (d) Alfalfa
Fig. 4. Change of trusted pixel accuracy and amount for the alternate cropping pattern
1) Monocropping Pattern: Monocropping pattern extracts
pixels that have the constant crop type in the past few years.
Figure 3 presents the change of TPA and amount of pixels
derived from the monocropping pattern. The vertical axis of
each graph represents the TPA (right) and pixel amount (left).
The horizontal axis of each graph represents the length of
the referenced historical CDL data. For each crop type, we
compared the result of 2015 to 2017 using the moving window
with length from 1-year to 12-year. It can be observed from
the result that the change of corn is regular. With the increase
of CDL history, the corn’s TPA keeps going up. The result of
other crop types is not as satisfactory as corn. Some croplands
continuously growing soybean and winter wheat, yet many of
them will be replaced by other crop types at any time. The
result of alfalfa is unique. When using the 2-year historical
CDL data as reference, the alfalfa’s TPA reaches over 80%,
which is higher than the result based on the longer CDL
record. This result means a lot of croplands in Nebraska state
growing alfalfa for three consecutive years.
2) Alternate Cropping Pattern: Alternate cropping is the
most widely used crop rotation pattern in not only Nebraska
state but many other states in the Corn Belt region of mid-
western United States. Take corn as an example, if it is
constantly growing in the planting cycle of “corn, non-corn”,
we regard these pixels as the trusted pixel that following the
alternate cropping pattern. Figure 4 shows the change of the
TPA and amount of the trusted pixels that derived from the
alternate cropping pattern. For each crop type, we compared
the result of 2015 to 2017 using the moving window with
length from 2-year to 12-year. We can find out a great number
of croplands are following the alternate cropping pattern. After
two planting cycles (4 years), the TPA of corn and soybean
can achieve over 90% and keep going up with the increase
of the moving window of historical CDL record. After three
planting cycles (6 years), the trusted pixel of winter wheat
can reach over 80% agreement with the original CDL data.
Alfalfa, however, does not follow the alternate cropping pattern
since most alfalfa pixels are following the 3-consecutive-year
monocropping pattern.
3) Three-year Planting Cycle Crop Rotation Pattern: In
a three-year planting cycle, a certain crop could be grown
once or twice every three years. These patterns are denoted as
“ABB”, “ABB”, and “ABA”, where “A” represents the crop
of interest (e.g. corn), “B” represents the crop other than the
crop of interest (e.g. non-corn). Figure 5 shows the change
of TPA and amount of trusted pixels extracted by the “ABB”
crop rotation pattern. We compared the result of each crop
type from 2015 to 2017 using the moving window with length
from 3-year to 12-year. The result shows a certain amount
of corn, soybean, and winter wheat pixels follow the “ABB”
pattern. After three planting cycles (9 years), corn and soybean
can achieve the TPA of over 80%. The TPA of winter wheat
is a little bit lower but keeps going up with the increase
of referenced CDL data. Alfalfa does not follow the “ABB”
pattern.
The results of the “AAB” pattern (Figure 6) indicate a
certain amount of corn pixels consistently follow the “AAB”
pattern. After three planting cycles (9 years), a small number
of soybean pixels achieve 80% of TPA. Winter wheat and
alfalfa do not follow “ABA” pattern.
The results of the “ABA” pattern (Figure 7) suggest some
corn pixels continuously follow the “ABA” pattern, which can
reach TPA of 80% after three planting cycles (9 years). A
few alfalfa pixels follow this pattern as well, but the result
varies between years. Soybean and winter wheat do not follow
“ABA” pattern.
(a) Corn (b) Soybeans (c) Winter Wheat (d) Alfalfa
Fig. 5. Change of trusted pixel accuracy and amount for the “ABB” crop rotation pattern.
(a) Corn (b) Soybeans (c) Winter Wheat (d) Alfalfa
Fig. 6. Change of trusted pixel accuracy and amount for the “AAB” crop rotation pattern.
(a) Corn (b) Soybeans (c) Winter Wheat (d) Alfalfa
Fig. 7. Change of trusted pixel accuracy and amount for the “ABA” crop rotation pattern.
B. Mapping Trusted Pixels
Based on the above analysis, we can observe that each crop
type has been following one or more reliable crop rotation
patterns in Nebraska. In this study, a crop rotation pattern
will be regarded as the “reliable crop rotation pattern” if its
TPA is higher than 80%. Table II summarizes the minimum
planting cycle that required for each crop rotation pattern to
reach high TPA, where “C”, “NC”, “A”, “S”, “NS”, “W”,
and “NW” represent “corn”, “non-corn”, “alfalfa”, “soybean”,
“non-soybean”, “winter wheat”, and “non-winter wheat”, re-
spectively. The percentage of TPA and Proportion in CDL is
the mean value of three target years (2015-2017).
Once the latest CDL data is released to public, the current-
year trusted pixel can be created based on these reliable
crop rotation patterns without any current-year ground truth
information. Figure 8 show the 2018 trusted pixel map of
Nebraska derived by February 2018 using the CDL data from
2009 to 2017.
IV. DISCUSSION
It can be seen from the experiment result in Section
III-A that each crop type follows one or more crop rotation
patterns. The total amount of trusted pixels for each crop
rotation pattern keeps going down with the increase of the
referenced historical CDL record. This change is caused by
the following reasons: (1) many cropland units broke the
common crop rotation patterns at some stage of the historical
agricultural practice; (2) the pixel information of some regions
is inaccurate or missing in the historical CDL data; (3) the
cropland follows some other crop rotation patterns which are
not covered in this study.
Technically, “AAB” pattern and “ABA” pattern have the
same planting cycle (twice in three years), except for 1-
year time lag. However, the experiment result shows the
TPA of “AAB” crop rotation pattern is higher than “ABA”
crop rotation pattern. This difference could be explained by
the experiment results of monocropping pattern and alternate
cropping pattern. Take corn for instance, it can be found from
the first column in Figure 3 that only 40% of corn pixels
do not change their crop type in the next year. On the other
hand, the first column in Figure 4 indicates that over 80% of
corn pixels follow the alternate cropping pattern and change
the crop type after one alternate cropping planting cycle. It
can be concluded from the historical CDL data that the crop
type of most pixels in Nebraska is more likely to be changed
in the following growing season. In the long term, “ABA”
TABLE II
SUMMARY OF RELIABLE CROP ROTATIO N PATTER NS IN NEBRASKA, U SA
Planting Cycle Historical Crop Rotation Record Subsequent Crop TPA Proportion in CDL
1-year C-C-C-C-C-C Corn 83.09% 11.08%
A-A Alfalfa 82.94% 54.85%
2-year C-NC Corn 82.91% 46.80%
S-NS-S-NS Soybean 87.02% 46.55%
W-NW-W-NW-W-NW Winter Wheat 80.53% 17.90%
3-year C-NC-NC-C-NC-NC-C-NC-NC Corn 88.27% 0.75%
C-C-NC Corn 83.86% 14.04%
Fig. 8. The 2018 trusted pixel map of Nebraska, USA (produced by February 2018)
pattern and “AAB” pattern are equivalent with each other. In
the short term, the subsequent growing crop of the “ABA”
pattern follows the crop type of “A”, which is same as the
previous year. However, most land units follow the alternate
cropping pattern and keep changing the crop type year after
year, which can explain the accuracy difference between crop
rotation pattern of “AAB” and crop rotation pattern of “ABA”.
From the experiment result in Section III-B, we can see a
huge volume of trusted pixels can be automatically extracted
from the historical CDL data using reliable crop rotation
patterns. The TPA can be further improved by extracting
trusted pixels from the long-term reference data. As the trade-
off, the proportion of the trusted pixel will go down while
the increasing of the TPA. For major crop types (corn and
soybean) in the Nebraska state, the TPA of all reliable crop
rotation patterns would be stabilized at 90%-95% based on the
historical CDL record of 10-years or longer.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WO RK S
This paper presented an efficient method to extract trusted
pixels from the historical CDL data using crop rotation
patterns. Several common crop rotation patterns, including
monocropping, alternate cropping, and 3-year panting cycle
crop rotation, were investigated. We found seven reliable crop
rotation patterns of four major crop types in the Nebraska state
of USA. The trusted pixels derived by the reliable crop rotation
patterns can reach 90%-95% agreement with the CDL data,
which can be potentially used to replace the actual ground truth
in the crop mapping and other agricultural applications at early
growing season. In the future, we will investigate more crop
rotation patterns for more diverse crop types over the entire
CONUS. Moreover, the feasibility of in-season crop mapping
using the trusted pixels will be explored.
ACK NOW LE DG EM EN T
This study is supported by a grant from U.S. National
Science Foundation (grant#: CNS-1739705, PI: Dr. Liping Di).
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