Spatio-temporal analysis of cropland changes in US in the last decade

Land use land cover changes (LULCC) are expected to occur due to population growth, climate change and bioenergy demand. It is imperative that we develop better data analysis and techniques to estimate these changes to better predict the consequences and impacts of such changes on the environment. In this study we analyze time series MODIS land cover data to estimate patterns of spatio-temporal cropland and grassland change by analyzing nine years of consistent land cover data. Our results show that the rate of displacement of cropland and grassland by each other declined for the fist half of the last decade while it increased in the second half of the decade. Most of these changes were concentrated in the Great Plain regions and included states in the Corn Belt.