Celebrating a Decade of Statewide Land Use Mapping

As a firm deeply rooted in land-based science, Land IQ realized more than fifteen years ago that there was a significant gap in available data to understand what was happening on the surface of the ground. At that time the only resources available were the Department of Water Resource’s (DWR) County Crop Reports, which were not conducted on an annual basis, or the United State’s Department of Agriculture’s Cropland Data Layer, which does not consider California’s diverse cropping patterns.

Our mapping journey began with a pilot study for the Almond Board of California (ABC), mapping almonds in Madera County in 2011. Two years later, we mapped Madera County again and then followed up with the first ever statewide mapping of almonds, walnuts, pistachios and dried plums through a Specialty Crop Block Grant with ABC, the California Walnut Board, California Pistachio Research Board, and the California Dried Plum Board in 2014.

What started as just four commodities, turned into numerous others, and set the stage for mapping all crops across the entire state of California for the first time for DWR. Ten years later, Land IQ has completed eight mapping Task Orders, meeting or exceeding mapping objectives, each of which have exceeded the required 95% level of accuracy. Throughout this experience we have continuously sought areas for innovation, technological advancement and improvements in mapping efforts, offering refinements to mapping classes and expanded mapping features in every mapped water year.

Our demonstrated techniques for land cover mapping with remote sensing approaches has successfully mapped over 15 million acres in California and an additional 3.5 million acres throughout the United States, Australia, and Mexico. Our remote sensing mapping approach provides a comprehensive dataset that is accurate, consistent, uniform in scale, timely in delivery, and demonstrated at a statewide level. And with mapping that spans over ten years, allows for analysis of land and water use trends.

To learn more about Land IQ’s land use mapping, users and uses, as well as crop trends, visit www.landiq.com/land-use-mapping.