Cropland abandonment between 1986 and 2018 across the United States: spatiotemporal patterns and current land uses

Xie, Yanhua; Spawn-Lee, Seth A.; Radeloff, Volker C.; Yin, He; Robertson, G. Philip; Lark, Tyler J.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ad2d12

Cropland abandonment between 1986 and 2018 across the United States: spatiotemporal patterns and current land uses

Journal Article · Tue Mar 12 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Environmental Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad2d12· OSTI ID:2370521

^[1]; ^[2]; Radeloff, Volker C. ^[2]; Yin, He ^[3]; Robertson, G. Philip ^[4]; Lark, Tyler J. ^[2]

University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI (United States); University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States); Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI (United States)
Kent State University, OH (United States)
Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI (United States); Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (United States)

Knowing where and when croplands have been abandoned or otherwise removed from cultivation is fundamental to evaluating future uses of these areas, e.g. as sites for ecological restoration, recultivation, bioenergy production, or other uses. However, large uncertainties remain about the location and time of cropland abandonment and how this process and the availability of associated lands vary spatially and temporally across the United States. Here, we present a nationwide, 30 m resolution map of croplands abandoned throughout the period of 1986–2018 for the conterminous United States (CONUS). We mapped the location and time of abandonment from annual cropland layers we created in Google Earth Engine from 30 m resolution Landsat imagery using an automated classification method and training data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cropland Data Layer. Our abandonment map has overall accuracies of 0.91 and 0.65 for the location and time of abandonment, respectively. From 1986 to 2018, 12.3 (±2.87) million hectares (Mha) of croplands were abandoned across CONUS, with areas of greatest change over the Ogallala Aquifer, the southern Mississippi Alluvial Plain, the Atlantic Coast, North Dakota, northern Montana, and eastern Washington state. The average annual nationwide abandoned area across our study period was 0.51 Mha per year. Annual abandonment peaked between 1997 and 1999 at a rate of 0.63 Mha year^–1, followed by a continuous decrease to 0.41 Mha year^–1 in 2009–2011. Among the abandoned croplands, 53% (6.5 Mha) changed to grassland and pasture, 18.6% (2.28 Mha) to shrubland and forest, 8.4% (1.03 Mha) to wetlands, and 4.6% (0.56 Mha) to non-vegetated lands. Of the areas that we mapped as abandoned, 19.6% (2.41 Mha) were enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program as of 2020. Our new map highlights the long-term dynamic nature of agricultural land use and its relation to various competitive pressures and land use policies in the United States.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0018409

OSTI ID:: 2370521

Journal Information:: Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 19; ISSN 1748-9326

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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