Too many types of croplands to plot, what should we do?

[camilavargasp]

Hi @trinhxuann

I'm looking at the cropland datasets, and there are 74 different types of crops. These are too many categories to plot all in one map. Would it be possible to group them into broader categories, hopefully having no more than 10-15?

I created this spreadsheet in the Sharepoint folder (inside data-raw) to see if you could classify this somehow.

Let me know what you think!

[trinhxuann]

I took a look at the metadata file for the raster file here: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/metadata/metadata_ca23.htm.

Near the bottom of the file, they split the crop types across 6 categories. Some considerations on paths forward:

1. Use the lookup table from the metadata file (I've copied it to the spreadsheet you linked) and classify the crops to 4 categories, "crop", "non-crop", "others", and "nlcdDerivedClasses". Anything that falls within crop would just be summarized into a crop type...?
2. Combine our list of crops with those having valuation figures that Daya has sent me. I will find time next week to cross reference this to our current this. This will reduce our list of potential crops to display a bit more (not to 10-15 though...).
3. Ask Chris and Daya who might be more versed in what's important for our area.

I will work on this a bit more next week when I find time.
Thoughts?

[camilavargasp]

Sounds good, thank you!
I'll use the table you shared for now and plot those broad categories.
I think it would be nice to have categories that are a little less broad, but we also need to consider the end goal of this layer and see what makes sense to plot.