Data sets
A major goal of our research group is to develop an improved understanding of human land use activities at continental to global scales. Consequently, we have been developing maps and datasets describing contemporary and historical global land use practices. You may freely download our data sets here, for non-commerical use.

Some data sets were developed earlier, during Navin Ramankutty's tenure at SAGE, at the University of Wisconsin. For those earlier data sets, please visit the SAGE website (http://www.sage.wisc.edu/pages/datamodels.html).
Described in the publication, Potter et al. (forthcoming), Earth Interactions. The data is provided in two formats – NetCDF and ArcINFO ASCII – at 0.5 degree resolution in latitude by longitude.
Described in the publication, Monfreda et al. (2008), "Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000", Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol.22, GB1022, doi:10.1029/2007GB002947. The data is provided in NetCDF and ArcGIS ASCII format at 5 minute resolution in latitude by longitude. The NetCDF files have 4 levels (ArcGIS files only have the 1st two levels; contact authors if you want the other two levels), as follows: Level 1 = Harvested Area (unit = proportion of grid cell area). Note that values can be greater than 1.0 because of multiple cropping. Level 2 = Yield (unit = tons per ha). Levels 3 and 4 = Administrative levels from which the source data in levels 1 and 2 come from respectively. In levels 3 and 4, a value of 1 = county; .75 = state; .5 = interpolated from within 2 degrees lat/long; .25 = country; 0 = missing
Described in the publication, Ramankutty et al. (2008), "Farming the planet: 1. Geographic distribution of global agricultural lands in the year 2000", Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 22, GB1003, doi:10.1029/2007GB002952. The data is provided in two formats – NetCDF and ArcINFO ASCII – at 5 minute resolution in latitude by longitude.
Described in the publication, Ramankutty et al. (forthcoming), Annals of American Association of Geography
Described in the publication, Ramankutty (2004), "Croplands in West Africa: A Geographically-explicit Data Set For Use in Models", Earth Interactions, 8, 1-22. The data is provided in two formats – NetCDF and ArcINFO ASCII – at 5 minute resolution in latitude by longitude.