Title: Determining Control Total Acres for Desired Geographies Using Cropland Data Layer (CDL)

Abstract: The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) evaluates the environmental impact of the conservation program of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In this project, we determine the total acreage of rangeland in specified regions. Previously, we utilized a design-based estimator, which needed the target region’s control total. As the control total is unavailable for new target regions, we create a novel model-based estimator independent of the control totals by utilizing satellite-based cropland data layer (CDL) data as auxiliary information. To capture CDL pixel information near the National Resources Inventory (NRI) samples, we design a fine grid of square tiles. For feature engineering and variable selection, we apply Lasso, fused Lasso, and K-means approaches. According to the empirical results, the new model-based estimator is a reliable alternative to the design-based estimator.