Annual Map of Temporary Agricultural Crops

The Annual Map of Temporary Agricultural Cultures (Macat) is a product of the Soil Occupation Monitoring System (SMOS), an innovative initiative, designed and developed by the Directorate-General of the Territory, with the objective of continuously producing cartographic information on land use and occupation. SMOS uses the latest developments in space technologies and Artificial Intelligence to create products with more detail, quality, speed and made available with open data policy. All products can be viewed on vismos (https://smos.dgterritorio.gov.pt/vi-smos). Macat is an experimental product, resulting from DGT research and development activities, and users are encouraged to report to [email protected] a critical analysis of the use of the map. The Macat was created with the aim of providing additional information to the Conjuntural Soil Occupation Charter (COSC), having an annual production and updating frequency, and a raster format with pixels of 10 m. Two experimental editions were produced for the year 2020 and 2021. Macat ranks annual agriculture within the temporary farming areas defined in the 2018 Land Use and Occupation Charter (COS), specifically classes 2.1.1.1 and 2.1.1.2 (the COS nomenclature is described in https://www.dgterritorio.gov.pt/sites/default/files/documentos-publicos/ET-COS-1995-2007-2010-2015-2018-v1.pdf). Within this perimeter, Macat provides additional information for COSC areas classified as annual autumn/winter crops and annual spring/summer crops, specifically classes 211 and 212 (the COSC nomenclature is described in https://www.dgterritorio.gov.pt/sites/default/files/documentos-publicos/Nomenclatura_COSc.pdf). The Macat also includes the pixels classified in COSC as Matos, spontaneous Herbaceous Vegetation and Surfaces without vegetation (classes 410, 420 and 500) provided that they occur within the areas of temporary agriculture of COS2018. The Macat nomenclature consists of more than 30 classes identifying agricultural crops and other occupations (the Macat nomenclature is described in https://www.dgterritorio.gov.pt/sites/default/files/ficheiros-cartografia/nomenclatura_macat.pdf). Agricultural crops correspond to annual crops (e.g. wheat) selected on the basis of the Parcel Identification System (PIS) of the Institute for Financing for Agriculture and Fisheries (IFAP). The selection of crops is done independently in the 14 landscape units that divide the continental territory in the COSC production methodology. In each landscape unit, all annual crops occupying 1 % or more of the LPIS area in the respective landscape unit are selected. Thus, Macat includes all major annual crops even if their distribution is representative only in a restricted area of the territory. The remaining non-agricultural classes that form part of the Macat nomenclature are the three classes mentioned above (Matos, spontaneous Herbaceous Vegetation and Surfaces without vegetation) that can occur in agricultural areas of COS2018, for example, as a result of fallow or other management practices. Macat is produced through space technologies and Artificial Intelligence, which includes machine learning algorithms and expert knowledge rules to automatically classify multispectral and intra-annual series of optical Sentinel-2 satellite imagery data. To carry out this process a spectral database formed by monthly composites, spectral indices and intra-annual metrics of Sentinel-2 images is built for the agricultural year under analysis (i.e., from October 2020 to September 2021 for MACAT2021). The training database of each class for automatic classification is obtained by automatic processing of auxiliary information and photointerpretation. If you are not familiar with the provision of spatial data through visualisation services (e.g., WMS) and download can be found in the Support Guides on the open data page of DGT (https://www.dgterritorio.gov.pt/dados-abertos).