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A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century


An older version of this resource http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/60a890eb841c460192c03bb590687145 is available.
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Storage: The size of this resource is 10.6 GB
Created: Mar 09, 2026 at 7:41 a.m. (UTC)
Last updated: Mar 25, 2026 at 2:29 p.m. (UTC)
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Abstract

Crop production is among the most extensive human activities on the planet – with critical importance for global food security, land use, environmental burden, and climate. Yet despite the key role that croplands play in global land use and Earth systems, there remains little understanding of how spatial patterns of global crop cultivation have recently evolved and which crops have contributed most to these changes. Here, we construct a new data library of subnational crop-specific irrigated and rainfed harvested area statistics and combine it with global gridded land cover products to develop a global gridded (5-arcminute) irrigated and rainfed cropped area (MIRCA-OS) dataset for the years 2000 to 2020 for 23 crop classes. These global data products support critical insights into the spatially detailed patterns of irrigated and rainfed cropland change since the start of the century and provide an improved foundation for a wide array of global assessments spanning agriculture, water resource management, land use change, climate impact, and sustainable development.

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For citation, please use:
Kebede, E.A., Oluoch, K.O., Siebert, S. et al. A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century. Sci Data 12, 208 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-04313-w

Subject Keywords

Coverage

Spatial

Coordinate System/Geographic Projection:
WGS 84 EPSG:4326
Coordinate Units:
Decimal degrees
North Latitude
90.0000°
East Longitude
180.0000°
South Latitude
-90.0000°
West Longitude
-180.0000°

Temporal

Start Date:
End Date:

Content

Additional Metadata

Name Value
MIRCA-OS Metadata A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century version v2, March 2026.

Related Resources

This resource updates and replaces a previous version Kebede, E., K. O. Oluoch, S. Siebert, P. Mehta, S. Hartman, J. Jägermeyr, D. Ray, T. Ali, K. A. Brauman, Q. Deng, W. Xie, K. F. Davis (2026). A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/60a890eb841c460192c03bb590687145

Credits

Funding Agencies

This resource was created using funding from the following sources:
Agency Name Award Title Award Number
United States Department of Agriculture Targeted Conservation: A coupled hydro-economic modeling approach to maximizing water availability across the Mississippi River Basin Grant no. 2022-67019-37180
The University of Alabama Global Water Security Center None None
The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) Hydroinformatics Innovation Fellowship None
National Science Foundation Digital Transformation of Development Fellowship DGE- 2125913
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program None #DGE-1752814
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation SFB 1502/1-2022 – Projektnummer: 450058266

Contributors

People or Organizations that contributed technically, materially, financially, or provided general support for the creation of the resource's content but are not considered authors.

Name Organization Address Phone Author Identifiers
Gambhir Lamsal Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) Virgnia, US
Landon Marston Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia, US

How to Cite

Kebede, E., Oluoch, K. O., Siebert, S., Mehta, P., Hartman, S., Jägermeyr, J., Ray, D., Ali, T., Brauman, K. A., Deng, Q., Xie, W., Davis, K. F. (2026). A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/e4582ca0042148338bb5e0148b749ed6

This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
CC-BY

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