The results indicated that over these twelve years, on average: (a) croplands increased by 1 Mha/yr, and (b) cropland fallows decreased by 1 Mha/year.
About 58% of the rainfed and 39% of the irrigated were single crops (net cropland area without cropland fallows) cropped during either season 1 (January-May) or season 2 (June-September).
Based on these data, the study first produced accurate reference cropland layers or RCLs (cropland extent/areas, irrigation versus rainfed, cropping intensities, crop dominance, and croplands versus cropland fallows) for the year 2014 that provided an overall accuracy of around 90% for crop extent in different agro-ecological zones (AEZs).
The DBH ranges were 5.6 44.7, 7.6 40.7, 6.9 62.4, 7 52.7 and 9.2 57.9 cm respectively in forest land, savanna grassland, cropland and fallow, settlement and agroforestry systems (cashew plantation).
These represented 80.5, 82.75, 79.55 and 76.8 % of the total number of tree species for forest land, grassland, cropland and fallow, and settlement respectively (cf. Table 2).
We used seven LULC classes that reflect the dominant land use classes for biomass stocks assessment in our case study region: riparian forest and woodland, Savanna Woodland, shrub savanna, cropland and fallow, settlements, agroforestry and plantation.
Village was defined as the land immediately around the settlement while agricultural field included all croplands, open fallow, and plantations.
Storm water runoff was collected at 10-m intervals in three buffer types (native grass, fallow cropland, and Conservation Reserve Program).
We used the following LUCa to fit the models: forest land (the combination of riparian forest, Savanna Woodland and shrub savanna), savanna grassland (grassland), settlement, cropland (cropland and fallow).
We estimated SOC stock on 0.1 ha plots for 95 different locations in a 43,000 ha reference area covering both dry and humid conditions and representing different land cover including natural forest, cropland, pasture and fallows.
