The US Geological Survey is offering a funding opportunity to fund research contributing to the Global Cropland Area Database at nominal 30m (GCAD30) for the years 2010 and 1990 with 4 distinct products: 1. Cropland extent\area, 2. Crop types with focus on 8 crops that occupy 70% of the global cropland areas, 3. Irrigated versus rainfed, and 4. Cropping intensities: single, double, triple, and continuous cropping. This research be based on the processing of satellite data from Landsat, MODIS and AVHRR and will greatly improve upon the existing cropland maps, which suffer from major limitations such as: (1) Absence of precise spatial location of the cropped areas; (b) Coarse resolution nature of the map products with significant uncertainties in areas, locations, and detail; (b) Uncertainties in differentiating irrigated areas from rainfed areas; (c) Absence of crop types and cropping intensities; and (e) Absence of a dedicated web\data portal for the dissemination of cropland products. GCAD30 will make significant contributions to Earth System Data Records (ESDRs), Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Agriculture and Water Societal Beneficial Areas (GEO Ag. SBAs), GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative (GEO GLAM), and the recent ¿Big Data¿ initiative by the White House.