Global Pastureland Changes from 2001 to 2020

Global pastureland covers about one-third of the Earth’s land surface and has undergone significant changes in the past decades. Understanding the spatial distribution and trends of pastureland is essential for addressing environmental and food security challenges as well as supporting sustainable development. This study reconstructs pastureland maps at 500m spatial resolution based on the MODIS MCD12Q1 V6 land cover product and the Gridded Livestock World v3 (GLW) dataset. We further analyzed the trend, variability, and distribution in pastureland from 2001 to 2020. Overall, the pastureland area in this study is consistent with FAOSTAT, HYDE, and HILDA datasets. In selected countries with large pastureland areas, the pastureland in Australia and China contracted while it expanded in the United States over the period 2001 to 2020. For Brazil, pastureland area initially grew and then declined in later years. We find that pastureland in the United States, Canada, China, Australia, and Sub-Saharan Africa largely remained stable over this period. In the South of America and Russia, it is unstable, which indicates frequent conversion of pastureland into other land uses. This reconstruction of global pastureland at 500m level is promising for accurately capturing the spatial heterogeneity of pastureland and further improving our understanding of its impact on renewable fuels policies, sustainable development targets, and environmental issues.