NASS says this is a Cropland data layer product, what about the areas that are not agriculturally intensive?
The strength of the CDL is in its agricultural classifications. Due to the extensive agricultural training data provided by the FSA, CLU Program, the major crop types for a CDL state will normally have a classification accuracy of 85% to 95%. However, the FSA CLU data does not contain much, if any, non-agricultural data. The only source of non-ag training available at the scale required to meet the needs of the CDL Program is the USGS 2001 National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD). We sample the non-ag categories of the NLCD proportionate to the available FSA CLU data for a state and include this in the CDL classification process. Thus, the accuracy of the non-agricultural land cover classes within the Cropland Data Layer are entirely dependent upon the NLCD. We recommend that users consider the NLCD for studies involving non-agricultural land cover. For more information please reference the NLCD.
