HIStory of LAND transformation by humans in South America (HISLAND-SA): annual and 1-km crop-specific gridded data (1950–2020)

Abstract. South America is a global hotspot for land use and land cover (LULC) change, marked by dramatic agricultural land expansion and deforestation. Developing high-resolution, long-term crop-specific data is essential for gaining a deeper understanding of natural-human interactions and addressing the impacts of human activities on regional biogeochemical, hydrological cycles, and climate. In this study, we integrated multi-source data, including high-resolution remote sensing data, model-based data, and historical agricultural census data, to reconstruct the historical dynamics of four major commodity crops (i.e., soybean, maize, wheat, and rice) in South America at annual time scale and 1 km×1 km spatial resolution from 1950 to 2020. The results showed that cropland in South America has expanded rapidly through encroachment into other vegetation over the past 70 years. Specifically, soybean is one of the most dramatically expanded crops, increasing from essentially zero in 1950 to 48.8 Mha in 2020, resulting in a total loss of 23.92 Mha of other vegetation (i.e., forest, pasture/rangeland, and unmanaged grass/shrubland). In addition, the area of maize increased by a factor of 2.1 from 12.7 Mha in 1950 to 26.9 Mha in 2020, while rice and wheat areas remained relatively stable. The newly developed crop type data provide important insights for assessing the impacts of agricultural land expansion on crop production, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon and nitrogen cycles in South America. Moreover, these data are instrumental for developing national policies, sustainable trade, investment, and development strategies aimed at securing food supply and other human and environmental objectives in South America and other regions. The datasets are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14002960 (Xu et al., 2024).