New Agricultural Pesticide Use Dataset at NASA’s SEDAC

This gridded dataset provides maps and data enabling assessments about the extent and patterns of agricultural pesticide use worldwide.
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Global image with colors indicating the application rate of petroleum oil on orchards and grapes. Three maps at the bottom of the image give a closer view of the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Map from the new Global Pesticide Grids dataset showing the high estimate for 2015 for the annual application rate (mass per area per year) of petroleum oil on orchards and grapes. Darker colors indicate higher application rates. Blue indicates “Banned and Not Approved,” indicating areas prohibiting the use of the pesticide in question (as seen over much of Europe, Great Britain, and Scandinavia in the center map at the bottom). Image: Maggi, F., Tang, F.H.M., la Cecilia, D. & McBratney, A. (2019). Global Pesticide Grids (PEST-CHEMGRIDS). Palisades, NY: NASA SEDAC. https://doi.org/10.7927/ga8j-wz84.

A new dataset at NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) provides information about a range of commonly-used agricultural pesticides, and is designed to help enable assessment of human and ecosystem exposure to these pesticides along with related research. Developed by researchers in Australia, the Global Pesticide Grids (PEST-CHEMGRIDS), v1 dataset (DOI:10.7927/ga8j-wz84) includes a comprehensive database of the 20 most-used pesticide active ingredients on six dominant crops and four aggregated crop classes estimated in year 2015 and projected to the years 2020 and 2025.

The Global Pesticide Grids dataset is one of five datasets comprising SEDAC’s Global Agricultural Inputs, v1 data collection. The objective of this collection is to provide a better understanding of the current level and spatial patterns of fertilizer, pesticide, and manure applications on a global scale, and to help identify areas that might be sensitive to aquatic eutrophication, nutrient depletion, habitat destruction, and species extinction. The Global Pesticide Grids may be a valuable resource for research assessing human and ecosystem exposure to potential and recognized toxicants, and has a wide range of uses, including environmental modelling and the assessment of agricultural chemical contamination and risk analysis.

SEDAC is the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) responsible for archiving and distributing socioeconomic data in the EOSDIS collection, and is hosted at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). SEDAC synthesizes Earth science and socioeconomic data and information in ways useful to a wide range of decision makers and other applied users, and serves as an “Information Gateway” between the socioeconomic and Earth science data and information domains.

Explore the Global Pesticide Grids dataset at NASA’s SEDAC: DOI:10.7927/ga8j-wz84