Disaster Analysis 2020

NASS can now monitor agricultural disasters in near real-time and provide quantitative assessments using remotely sensed data and geospatial techniques. This page provides disaster assessments in geospatial data format, reports, and metadata as available. A flood monitoring methodology paper is located here.


Hurricane Zeta (October 2020)

Hurricane Zeta impacted areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, United States between October 24 – 29, 2020 as a category 2 hurricane. The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding the extent of flooding from Hurricane Zeta over agricultural land in near real-time. The map below identifies the extent of agriculture (2019 USDA NASS Cropland Data Layer) that intersects with wind swath data from the National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

Files available for download: Synopsis

Map of Hurricane Zeta (October 2020)

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Hurricane Delta (October 2020)

Hurricane Delta impacted areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, United States from October 9 - 12, 2020 as a category 2 hurricane. The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding the extent of flooding from Hurricane Delta over agricultural land in near real-time. The map below identifies the extent of agriculture (2019 USDA NASS Cropland Data Layer) that intersects with wind swath data from the National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

Files available for download: Synopsis

Map of Hurricane Delta (October 2020)

Download higher resolution map: PNG | PDF



Washington State Wildfires (September 2020)

The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding the extent of cropland and pasture/hay affected by Washington wildfires occurring in mid-August to mid-September 2020 in near real-time. Active wildfire perimeter location data from The National Interagency Fire Center, along with the NASS Cropland Data Layer and the USGS National Land Cover Database, were used to identify the potential agricultural areas impacted by the fires.

Files available for download: Synopsis

Map of Cold Springs Canyon/Pearl Hill Fires, Washington (September 2020)

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Hurricane Laura (September 2020)

Hurricane Laura impacted areas of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, United States from August 27 - 28, 2020 with heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges. The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding the extent of flooding from Hurricane Laura over agricultural land in near real-time. Consequently, a recently developed flood mapping procedure, based on Copernicus Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar data and the NASS Cropland Data Layer, was implemented in response to the flood event. The data, maps, and reports below identify the extent of inundation over cropland and pasture based on this analysis. There are several causes for anomalous water, which could include flooding, saturated fields from rainfall, ponding, or intentionally flooded rice and aquaculture fields. The crop inundation layers are publically available for download.

Files available for download: Synopsis | Raster Data Zip File | Assessment Report | Metadata

Map of Hurricane Laura Inundation (September 2020)

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Iowa Derecho (August 2020)

On August 10, 2020, the central United States experienced a derecho with widespread, destructive winds. The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding the extent of potential damage to cropland in Iowa from this event. Using estimated peak wind gust data (last updated August 25, 2020) from the NOAA National Weather Service and wind report data dated August 10, 2020 from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center, NASS identified major corn and soybean planted areas from the 2019 Cropland Data Layer that may have been affected by the derecho, and compared these estimates with 2019 official NASS estimates. Estimated wind gust polygon data is available for download below.

Files available for download: Synopsis | Polygon Zip File | Imagery Time Series | Metadata

Map of Agriculture affected by Iowa Derecho (August 2020)

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Tropical Storm Douglas (July 2020)

Tropical Storm Douglas impacted areas of Hawaii, United States from July 20 – 29, 2020. The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) responded to inquiries regarding affected land from Tropical Storm Douglas in near real-time. The map below identifies the extent of pasture and other agriculture (source: The University of Hawaii at Hilo Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization Laboratory) that intersects with wind swath data (source: National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center).

Files available for download: Synopsis

Map of agriculture affected by Tropical Storm Douglas (July 28, 2020)

Download higher resolution map: PNG | PDF



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Last Modified: 03/20/2024