Eyes on Earth: Agriculture

Episode 117 – Preparing for Landsat Next, Part 1

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In this episode, we talk with several people involved with the next Landsat mission. In Part 1, we’ll hear about how different Landsat Next will be from previous Landsat missions and how its additional spectral bands, higher resolution, and 6-day revisit will benefit science and society. Addressing the needs of the Landsat user community was a high priority in developing the mission, so we talk about what scientists are really looking forward to with Landsat Next. The Part 2 episode shares details about technical preparations, such as the ground system and data processing and validation.

Guests: Tim Newman, USGS Program Coordinator for National Land Imaging; Zhuoting Wu, USGS Earth Observation Applications Coordinator for National Land Imaging; Chris Crawford, USGS Research Physical Scientist

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, April 22, 2024

Episode 113 – EROS Science Leader’s Vision

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Terry Sohl helped develop the National Land Cover Database, NLCD, when he first arrived, and now he’s overseeing significant improvements to the widely used product. But that’s just one part of his new role. In this episode, Sohl provides an overview of the science efforts at EROS and how artificial intelligence and machine learning help scientists focus more on the work that helps society. He also shares his vision for the future. 

Guest: Terry Sohl, Chief of the USGS EROS Integrated Science and Applications Branch

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, February 26, 2023

Episode 111 – Mendenhall Fellow’s Drought Forecasting

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In this episode, we spoke to Mikael Hiestand, a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow. Using algorithms developed at EROS, Mikael is working on near-term drought forecasting. With synthetic Landsat data, he found that predicting evapotranspiration could be used as a means of drought prediction and monitoring. The Mendenhall Fellowship allows people who have just completed their PhD an opportunity to work on research with USGS scientists and prepare for their career.

Guest: Mikeal Hiestand, USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Physical Scientist

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, January 22, 2024

Episode 109 – Fall 2023 EROS Poster Session

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In this episode, we hear from several EROS staff members and university graduate students who took part in our Fall Poster Session. Lively conversations filled the EROS atrium during the hour-long event. Participants got to learn from one another as they shared their work. We talked to a few of them to get quick summaries of their research.

Guests: Belinda Apili (graduate student, South Dakota State University), Khushboo Jain (graduate student, University of South Dakota), Naeem Malik (graduate student, South Dakota State University), Stefanie Kagone (ASRC Federal Data Solutions, contractor to USGS EROS), Abby Miller (C2G, contractor to USGS EROS), Steve Boyte (USGS EROS), Sakshi Saraf (graduate student, University of South Dakota), Zack Schild (graduate student, University of South Dakota), Ubaid Janjua (graduate student, South Dakota State University)

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, December 4, 2023

Episode 42 – Rangelands of the U.S.

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In this episode, we hear how Landsat helps monitor vulnerable rangelands in the Western U.S. The extensive rangelands across the Western United States are threatened by invasive grasses, climate change, and altered fire regimes that can disturb the landscape. The largely semi-arid lands are also important for the survival of species that need undisturbed sagebrush ecosystems to thrive. But most satellite-based land cover datasets don’t offer the kind of detail needed to track small but ecologically meaningful shifts in vegetation that can alter fire regimes and improve habitats. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear about how new EROS data products help fill in that gap.

Guest:  Matt Rigge, Research Physical Scientist, USGS EROS Center

Host: John Hult

Release date: January 25, 2021

Episode 37 – Insuring West Africa’s Crops

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In this episode, we hear how EROS data streams could be used to encourage agriculture production in West Africa.The Green Revolution leaned on fertilizers, drought-resistant seeds and other modern innovations to boost agricultural production across much of the planet in the second half of the 20^th Century. But many of those innovations never reached West Africa, partially because the lack of social safety nets and crop insurance made such investments too risky. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear about a new product called index insurance that could help encourage yield-boosting investments by small holder farmers in West Africa, and how EROS data might be used to refine and improve the product.

Guest: Chris Funk, USGS EROS, Sari Lucille Blakeley and Greg Husak, University of California-Santa Barbara

Host: John Hult

Release date: November 2, 2020

Episode 12 – Plant Health via Satellite (NDVI)

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In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk to Jesslyn Brown about the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a tool that uses the broader electromagnetic spectrum to estimate plant health. A farmer at the foot of a corn stalk can tell how well the plant is faring. That same farmer might survey his entire field for crop health. But assessing the health of crops or forests at regional, national, and international scales requires remote sensing, most often via satellite.

Guests: Jesslyn Brown, Research Physical Scientist

Host: John Hult

Release date: Dec. 16, 2019

Episode 9 – Famine Early Warning

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In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from an EROS climate scientist who works with the Network to predict drought and famine. Nearly 85 million people around the world are currently considered “food insecure,” and that figure continues to grow. Remote sensing technology enables scientists to feed data into the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which in turn can issue alerts that guide the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Guest: Chris Funk, USGS EROS Research Geographer

Host: Steve Young

Producer: Brian Hauge

Release date: Nov. 18, 2019

Episode 8 – Assessing America’s Cropland

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In this episode, Dave Johnson with NASS discusses how Landsat can identify different crops, providing a valuable economic tool for agriculture. Every year, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) uses data from satellites like Landsat to estimate crop types and crop yields in the United States. The result is the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), which offers an annual look at more than 100 crop categories across the country.

Guest: Dave Johnson, USDA Senior Geographer with NASS

Host: Steve Young

Release date: Nov. 6, 2019