A field boundary dataset for the canadian prairies derived from sentinel-2 imagery using the segment anything model

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Authors: Thuan Ha, Kwabena Abrefa Nketia, Shawn Neudorf, Steve J. Shirtliffe
Cited by: 1
References: 2

Abstract

This article presents a Prairie-wide spatial vector dataset of agricultural field boundaries across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, Canada. The dataset was generated from Sentinel-2 Level-2A surface reflectance imagery (10 m spatial resolution) using an automated segmentation workflow based on the Segment Anything Model version 2 (SAM2). Sentinel-2 imagery was accessed in Google Earth Engine (GEE), filtered using cloud/quality masks, and aggregated into seasonal RGB composites representing key crop phenological periods (early-, mid-, and late-season) for large-scale segmentation input. The composite images were exported and processed with a SAM2 segmentation pipeline (tiled inference and mosaic-based post-processing) to delineate candidate field units without manually labeled training samples. Segmentation outputs were then post-processed using rule-based filtering and topology repair (removal of small artifacts/sliver polygons, hole filling, boundary cleaning, and geometry validity correction). Final vector outputs are distributed in ESRI Shapefile and GeoParquet formats with geometry attributes for downstream spatial analysis. The workflow code and processing scripts are provided to support reproducibility and adaptation to other regions. This dataset provides a consistent field-scale boundary reference layer for agricultural monitoring, crop and yield modeling, soil and environmental analysis, cropland mapping, land management, and machine-learning applications across the Canadian Prairies. •Prairie-wide field boundary datasets generated using automated segmentation of seasonal Sentinel-2 composites with the Segment Anything Model version 2, followed by vectorization and topological post-processing.•Vector outputs provided in both Shapefile and GeoParquet formats, enabling efficient use in traditional GIS, cloud-native, and big-data geospatial workflows.•A consistent, large-scale field boundary reference dataset supporting agricultural analysis, spatial modeling, cropland mapping, and machine learning applications across the Canadian Prairies.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Soil Geostatistics and Mapping Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Publication details

Journal / source
Data in Brief
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
66
Pages
112691–112691
Publication date
23 March 2026
Language
EN