{"id":221846,"date":"2025-09-12T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=221846"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:08:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T02:08:04","slug":"hawaii-cropland-data-layer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/12\/hawaii-cropland-data-layer\/","title":{"rendered":"First-of-its-kind agriculture maps help Hawai\u02bbi track crops, boost food security"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"map
Hawaiʻi<\/span> Cropland Data Layer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Newly released, first-of-its-kind agriculture maps of the state of Hawaiʻi<\/span> are expected to help policymakers, land managers and researchers better monitor crop diversity, evaluate land-use change and design programs that support food security and sustainable agriculture. Experts said the new resource can also assist with post-fire disaster assessments, and in the near future, could potentially help better evaluate wildfire risks before a major disaster occurs, such as the 2023 Maui wildfires.<\/p>\n

The University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa, led by project director Qi Chen in the Department of Geography and Environment<\/a>, in collaboration with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS<\/abbr>) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA<\/abbr>), released the high-resolution, crop-specific dataset called Hawaiʻi<\/span> Cropland Data Layer (HCDL<\/abbr>). The maps are publicly available via NASS<\/abbr>\u2019s geospatial portals: CroplandCROS<\/a> and AgriWatch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Filling in the map ‘desert’<\/h2>\n
\"person
Professor Qi Chen speaking at a workshop last November to gather feedback for the first prototype of the HCDL<\/abbr> maps.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASS<\/abbr> collaborated with 东精影业<\/abbr> Mānoa to develop HCDL<\/abbr> by using Google Earth Engine and Google\u2019s DeepMind AI<\/abbr>-powered data. Hawaiʻi<\/span> was previously a “desert” for annual agricultural maps, said Chen in the College of Social Sciences<\/a>. He said the lack of maps hinders efforts to track crops, assess land use and support food security in Hawaiʻi<\/span>.<\/p>\n

“This gap in knowledge became especially evident during the 2023 Maui wildfires, when USDA<\/abbr> and state agencies had only limited capacity to assess the agricultural impact,” Chen said. “Without up-to-date, field-scale crop maps, agencies were unable to quickly quantify the extent of cropland loss, identify which crops were most affected or prioritize recovery resources. Instead, assessments had to be pieced together from outdated maps, secondary sources and on-the-ground reports, delaying an accurate picture of the disaster\u2019s effect on Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s agricultural sector.”<\/p>\n

Maps are currently available for 2024 and 2023. NASS<\/abbr> plans to release HCDL<\/abbr> for the 2025 crop year in February 2026. This project was supported by a $268,472 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Importance of agriculture maps<\/h2>\n

Chen said developing such maps for Hawaiʻi<\/span> is particularly critical because of the state\u2019s unique agricultural landscape. Unlike large-scale monocultures (the practice of growing a single species of plant over a large area), which are common on the U.S. continent, Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s farms are often small, fragmented and characterized by diverse crops cultivated side by side.<\/p>\n

“While it makes mapping more difficult, it also means that accurate, high-resolution crop maps can provide transformative insights into resource allocation, irrigation planning, invasive species management and resilience to environmental change,” said Zhe Li, project co-director and geographer in the USDA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

Li added that since annual crop maps for Hawaiʻi<\/span> are now available, they can be integrated with real-time satellite data on weather, drought and wildfire risk to safeguard agricultural production.<\/p>\n

“Consider a situation similar to the 2023 Maui wildfires: If high-resolution crop maps had been in place, emergency managers could have quickly overlaid fire perimeters with known crop locations to estimate economic losses and identify which producers needed the most help and immediate support,” Chen said. “Beyond disaster response, the same maps could also be used proactively—by identifying cropland areas most vulnerable to drought or invasive species, with agencies directing irrigation resources, extension services or pest management programs to the farmers who need them most.”<\/p>\n

In addition to Chen and Li, members of the research team include: Noa Lincoln, researcher in the Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences<\/a> in 东精影业<\/abbr> Mānoa\u2019s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience<\/a>; Zhengwei Yang, geographer with USDA<\/abbr>; Haonan Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Colorado State University; and Changyong Cao, chief of NOAA<\/abbr>\u2019s Satellite Calibration and Data Assimilation Branch in Satellite Meteorology and Climatology Division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s first high-resolution crop maps will help track agricultural diversity, support food security, and improve disaster and wildfire response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":221854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[222,301,212,38,1467,1363,1600,1026,432,9],"class_list":["post-221846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-agriculture","tag-college-of-social-sciences","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-geography","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-public-impact-research","tag-social-science","tag-tropical-plant-and-soil-sciences","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/manoa-geography-agriwatch-hcdl-map.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221907,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221846\/revisions\/221907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}