FAOSTAT: Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Land Use

The FAOSTAT domain on Land Cover data under the Agri-Environmental Indicators section contains land cover information organized by the land cover classes of the international standard system for Environmental and Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA CF). The land cover information is compiled from publicly available Global Land Cover (GLC) maps: a) MODIS land cover types based on the Land Cover Classification System, LCCS; b) The European Spatial Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) annual land cover maps produced by the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)-Geomatics and now under the European Copernicus Program; c) The annual land cover maps which were produced under the European Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) (CGLS land cover, containing discrete land cover categorization), with spatial resolution 100m; and d) the WorldCover maps of the European Space Agency, produced at 10m resolution.

The FAOSTAT domain on Emissions indicators disseminates indicators on sectoral shares of total national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as three indicators of emissions intensity: per capita emissions; emissions per value of agricultural production; and emissions per area of agricultural land.

Agricultural land refers to the share of land area that is arable, under permanent crops, and under permanent pastures. Arable land includes land defined by the FAO as land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once), temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture, land under market or kitchen gardens, and land temporarily fallow. Land abandoned as a result of shifting cultivation is excluded. Land under permanent crops is land cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest, such as cocoa, coffee, and rubber. This category includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber. Permanent pasture is land used for five or more years for forage, including natural and cultivated crops.

Forest area (% of land area) is the share of total land area that is under natural or planted stands of trees of at least 5 meters in situ, whether productive or not, and excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems (for example, in fruit plantations and agroforestry systems) and trees in urban parks and gardens.

The FAOSTAT domain on Emissions from Energy use in agriculture contains data on energy used in agriculture (including forestry, aquaculture and fisheries), for instance to operate machinery, irrigate, heat stables, operate aquaculture ponds and fishing vessels, and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It also includes on-farm use of, and related GHG emissions from, electricity and heat generated off-farm. Data are available by country and regional groups with global coverage and are updated annually.

Data from censuses of agriculture are collected at the holding level and provide information about the structure of agriculture of a country or a territory (e.g. size and number of holdings, land tenure, legal status, and sex of the holder). However, countries may apply their own definitions of agricultural holdings, which could affect the international comparability of census data. National censuses are conducted at least once every ten years. The "Structural data from agricultural censuses" domain in FAOSTAT provides structural data from the WCA rounds (WCA 1930, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020) for each participating country and territory, to the extent possible. The data are prepared based on the national census reports and other dissemination products available in the public domain or directly provided by member countries to FAO, also disseminated by FAO through its census-related publications, and recent methodological review of the available country census data of the WCA 2020 round.