Long time series (2001-2015) high-resolution crop yield and water productivity dataset of China

A long-term data series, at 1-km resolution, of crop yield (kg/ha) and crop water productivity (kg/m3) for maize and wheat across China, based on the MOD16 ET product, multiple remotely sensed crop physiological and environmental indicators, and crop phenological information, using a random forest algorithm. Results showed that MOD16 products are an accurate alternative to eddy covariance flux tower data to describe crop evapotranspiration (maize and wheat RMSE: 4.42 and 3.81 mm/8d, respectively) and the proposed yield estimation model showed accuracy at local (maize and wheat rRMSE: 26.81 and 21.80%, respectively) and regional (maize and wheat rRMSE: 15.36 and 17.17%, respectively) scales. These high-resolution crop yield and CWP datasets generated in this study revealed spatiotemporal patterns of agricultural production in China and may be applied to many scenarios, including understanding effects of climate change on agricultural production capacity in China under increasing demand for food security to optimize agricultural production strategies.