Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time

•LAMPS provides crop rotation and management information for user-specified areas.•LAMPS links CropScape with the Land Management Operations Database.•LAMPS automatically detects crop rotations and associated tillage events.•A Web service is available for open use as illustrated by the test case.

Agroecosystem models and conservation planning tools require spatially and temporally explicit input data about agricultural management operations. The Land-use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS) was developed to provide crop rotation and management information for user-specified areas within the 48 contiguous states of the USA. LAMPS links three data sources: (1) annual Cropland Data Layers (CDLs) from the CropScape Web service based on high-resolution remote sensing data for recent years provided by the National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), (2) maps of irrigated areas compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, and (3) the Land Management and Operation Database (LMOD) by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service containing agricultural management practices. The workflow within LAMPS for generating crop rotation and management information is described in detail, including details of the algorithm for matching annual crop sequences from CropScape to regional rotations in LMOD. Instructions for using the Web service are specified with example input and response listings. A study area of 15 fields in Colorado, USA is presented to demonstrate and evaluate LAMPS outputs using ground observations of crop types. LAMPS automatically detected actual crop rotations with a similarity to the ground observations better than using only CropScape detected dominant crop sequences. LAMPS is available for public use, further nation-wide evaluation, and extension to other spatial data provisioning related to agroecosytem modelling.