IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v9y2020i5p166-d361356.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Land Cover and Land Use Change in the US Prairie Pothole Region Using the USDA Cropland Data Layer

Author

Listed:
  • Woubet G. Alemu

    (Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA)

  • Geoffrey M. Henebry

    (Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 44824, USA
    Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 44823, USA)

  • Assefa M. Melesse

    (Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA)

Abstract

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is a biotically important region of grassland, wetland, and cropland that traverses the Canada-US border. Significant amounts of grasslands and wetlands within the PPR have been converted to croplands in recent years due to increasing demand for biofuels. We characterized land dynamics across the US portion of the PPR (US–PPR) using the USDA Crop Data Layer (CDL) for 2006–2018. We also conducted a comparative analysis between two epochs (1998–2007 & 2008–2017) of the CDL data time series in the North Dakotan portion of the US–PPR. The CDL revealed the western parts of the US–PPR have been dominated by grass/pasture, to the north it was spring wheat, to the east and southern half, soybeans dominated, and to the south it was corn (maize). Nonparametric trend analysis on the major crop and land cover types revealed statistically significant net decreases in the grass/pasture class between 2006 and 2018, which accounts for more than a quarter of grass/pasture area within the US–PPR. Other crops experiencing significant decreases included sunflower (-5%), winter wheat (-3%), spring wheat (-2%), and durum wheat (-1%). The combined coverage of corn and soybeans exhibited significant net increases in 23.5% of its cover; whereas, the individual significant net increases were 5% for corn and 11% for soybeans. Hotspots of increase in corn and soybeans were distributed across North and South Dakota. Other crop/land covers with huge significant increases include other hay/non-alfalfa (15%), and alfalfa (11%), which appear to be associated with the sharp increase in larger dairy operations, mostly in Minnesota. Wetland area increased 5% in the US–PPR, due to increased precipitation as well as inundation associated with Devils Lake in North Dakota. Hotspots of decreasing grass/pasture area were evident across the study area. Comparative trend analysis of two epochs (1998–2007 vs. 2008–2017) in North Dakota revealed that grass/pasture cover showed a negligible net trend (-0.3 %) between 1998 and 2007; whereas, there was a statistically significant decrease of more than 30% between 2008 and 2017. Combined coverage of corn and soybeans experienced statistically significant net increases in both epochs: 11% greater during 1998–2007 and 17% greater during 2008–2017. Recent sharp losses of grasslands and smaller wetlands combined the expansion of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa bode ill for wildlife habitat and require a re-examination of agricultural and energy policies that have encouraged these land transitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Woubet G. Alemu & Geoffrey M. Henebry & Assefa M. Melesse, 2020. "Land Cover and Land Use Change in the US Prairie Pothole Region Using the USDA Cropland Data Layer," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-20, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:5:p:166-:d:361356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/5/166/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/5/166/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lan H. Nguyen & Deepak R. Joshi & Geoffrey M. Henebry, 2019. "Improved Change Detection with Trajectory-Based Approach: Application to Quantify Cropland Expansion in South Dakota," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-11, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mary Ann Cunningham, 2022. "Climate Change, Agriculture, and Biodiversity: How Does Shifting Agriculture Affect Habitat Availability?," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-13, August.
    2. Ruiqing Miao & David A. Hennessy & Hongli Feng, 2022. "Grassland easement evaluation and acquisition with uncertain conversion and conservation returns," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 70(1), pages 41-61, March.
    3. Lim, Siew & Wachenheim, Cheryl, 2022. "Predicted enrollment in alternative attribute Conservation Reserve Program contracts," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    4. Kenneth Lee Copenhaver, 2022. "Combining Tabular and Satellite-Based Datasets to Better Understand Cropland Change," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-20, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiří Šandera & Přemysl Štych, 2020. "Selecting Relevant Biological Variables Derived from Sentinel-2 Data for Mapping Changes from Grassland to Arable Land Using Random Forest Classifier," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Ioannis Manakos & Garik Gutman & Chariton Kalaitzidis, 2021. "Monitoring Land Cover Change: Towards Sustainability," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-2, December.
    3. Hillary Mugiyo & Vimbayi G. P. Chimonyo & Mbulisi Sibanda & Richard Kunz & Cecilia R. Masemola & Albert T. Modi & Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi, 2021. "Evaluation of Land Suitability Methods with Reference to Neglected and Underutilised Crop Species: A Scoping Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-24, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:5:p:166-:d:361356. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.