Abstract
The Cropland Data Layer (CDL) product provides categorized land-cover information encompassing the whole contiguous United States. Using the latest Web and geospatial interoperability technologies, CropScape was built to visualize, query, disseminate, and analyze historical and current CDL data interactively and intuitively over the Internet. CropScape can be utilized as a useful online mapping educational tool and an important source of free geospatial data and geospatial Web services in GIS education. This article introduces the CDL product and functions of CropScape, and presents several specific examples of cropland exploring, thematic map creation, natural disaster assessment, crop planting patterns discovery, geospatial data mashup, and geospatial Web application development to demonstrate CropScape’s capabilities.
Notes
1CropScape: http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/ (accessed July 21, 2012).
2CropScape Developer Guide: http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/devhelp/help.html (accessed July 21, 2012).
3GIS in APES Learning Materials: http://nsstc.uah.edu/∼anderse/docs/GIS-in-APES_Lab2-3_GPS_water.doc (accessed July 14, 2013).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Weiguo Han
Dr. Weiguo Han is a research assistant professor in the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. His research activities encompass geospatial Web services, geospatial data sharing and interoperability, semantic Web, geospatial Web portal, and geospatial cyber-infrastructure.
Zhengwei Yang
Dr. Zhengwei Yang is an information technology specialist at Geospatial Information Branch, Research and Development Division, National Agricultural Statistics Service, in Fairfax, Virginia, USA. His research interests include land-cover classification and change detection methods, crop growth and condition monitoring, crop growth modeling and simulation, geospatial information system technology, and image processing methods. Since 2009 Dr. Yang has been an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Geography and GeoInformation Science, George Mason University.
Liping Di
Dr. Liping Di a professor and the founding director of the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems and a professor of the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. His current research interests include remote sensing standards, Web-based geospatial information and knowledge systems, and remote sensing applications.
Ali Levent Yagci
Ali Levent Yagci is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science and a research assistant in the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. His research areas cover evapotranspiration mapping using remote sensing data and methods, image processing, agricultural drought monitoring and forecasting, and land use and land cover.
Song Han
Dr. Song Han is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China. Her research interests include optimal method, mathematics in economics, game theory, microeconomic theory, and applied econometrics.