GEO BIG DATA AND DIGITAL AUGMENTATION FOR ACCELERATING AGROECOLOGICAL INTENSIFICATION IN DRYLANDS

The Tibetan Plateau is an important pastoral area where cultivated pastures play an increasingly important role. However, little is known about the spatial distribution of the cultivated pasture due to the difficulty in distinguishing them from natural grasslands with remote sensing. For the first time, we have mapped the cultivated pastures on the plateau at a resolution of 30 meters with decent accuracy. This data set is valuable to scientists, policy makers, conservationists and pastoralists.

Existing satellite-based forest maps have large uncertainties due to different forest definitions and mapping algorithms. To effectively manage forest resources, timely and accurate annual forest maps at a high spatial resolution are needed. This study improved forest maps by integrating PALSAR-2 and Landsat images. Annual evergreen and non-evergreen forest-type maps were also generated. This critical information supports the Global Forest Resources Assessment.

In order to make up for the lack of long-term soybean planting area maps in China, we firstly generated a dataset of soybean planting area with a spatial resolution of 10 m for major producing areas in China from 2017 to 2021 (ChinaSoyArea10m). Compared with existing datasets, ChinaSoyArea10m has higher consistency with census data and further improvement in spatial details. The dataset can provide reliable support for subsequent studies on yield monitoring and food security.

Variations in observational conditions have led to poor spatiotemporal consistency in leaf area index (LAI) time series. Using prior knowledge, we leveraged high-quality observations and spatiotemporal correlation to reprocess MODIS LAI, thereby generating HiQ-LAI, a product that exhibits fewer abnormal fluctuations in time series. Reprocessing was done on Google Earth Engine, providing users with convenient access to this value-added data and facilitating large-scale research and applications.

We generated China’s surface water bodies, Large Dams, Reservoirs, and Lakes (China-LDRL) dataset by analyzing all available Landsat imagery in 2019 (19\,338 images) in Google Earth Engine. The dataset provides accurate information on the geographical locations and sizes of surface water bodies, large dams, reservoirs, and lakes in China. The China-LDRL dataset will contribute to the understanding of water security and water resources management in China.