Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Datasets for the Conterminous United States (MIrAD-US)

NASS USDA estimates the irrigated croplands at county level every five years. But this estimation does not provide the geospatial information of the irrigated croplands. To provide a comprehensive, consistent, and timely geospatially detailed information about irrigated cropland conterminous U.S. (CONUS), the “Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the United States (MIrAD-US)” product was produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center with funding from several USGS programs (National Land Imaging and National Water-Quality Assessment). A primary objective was to identify, and map irrigated agricultural areas to factor into water quality studies and drought monitoring investigations. This product uses three primary data inputs, (a) USDA county-level irrigation area statistics for 2002, (b) annual peak eMODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and (c) a land cover mask for agricultural lands derived from NLCD to map the spatial distribution of irrigated lands across the conterminous United States. The MIrAD Version 4 offers the datasets for the years 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 at 250-m and 1-km spatial resolutions. The validation of MIrAD-US is a challenge because no other single-source current datasets are available at a national scale for comparison. Thus, this dataset should be considered provisional until a formal accuracy assessment can be completed. The product update is planned for every 5 years, synchronized with the update of the Census of Agriculture by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) but contingent upon availability of Collection 6 (C6) Aqua eMODIS data and funding.