How accurate are existing land cover maps for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa?
This addresses the need for accurate cropland maps to support EO-based agriculture monitoring in food-insecure regions of Africa, but it is incremental as it focuses on evaluating existing maps rather than developing new methods.
The study evaluated 11 publicly available land cover maps for cropland classification accuracy in Sub-Saharan Africa using reference datasets from 8 countries, finding significant variations in performance to help users select suitable maps for agriculture monitoring.
Satellite Earth observations (EO) can provide affordable and timely information for assessing crop conditions and food production. Such monitoring systems are essential in Africa, where there is high food insecurity and sparse agricultural statistics. EO-based monitoring systems require accurate cropland maps to provide information about croplands, but there is a lack of data to determine which of the many available land cover maps most accurately identify cropland in African countries. This study provides a quantitative evaluation and intercomparison of 11 publicly available land cover maps to assess their suitability for cropland classification and EO-based agriculture monitoring in Africa using statistically rigorous reference datasets from 8 countries. We hope the results of this study will help users determine the most suitable map for their needs and encourage future work to focus on resolving inconsistencies between maps and improving accuracy in low-accuracy regions.