Publications

Droughts in Tanzania pose challenges to agriculture, water resources, and hydropower production, all of which impact livelihoods. Tanzania experienced below average precipitation during 1999-2014 during two important seasons: December to February (DJF) in the south and during March to June (MAMJ) in the northeast. We explore DJF and MAMJ precipitation in the areas with drying trends and examine

Vegetation green-up signals the timing of available nutritious plants and shrubs providing high-quality forage for ungulates. In this study, we characterized spatial and temporal patterns of spring phenology and explored how they were related to preceding temperature and moisture conditions. We tested correlations between late winter weather and indicators of the onset and the length of the spring

The semi-arid Great Basin region in the Northwest U.S. is impacted by a suite of change agents including fire, grazing, and climate variability to which native vegetation can have low resilience and resistance. Assessing ecosystem condition in relation to these change agents is difficult due to a lack of a consistent and objective Site Potential (SP) information of the conditions biophysically pos

This general information product (GIP) lists websites related to the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and supersedes GIP 84.

Elevation data are critical for assessments of sea-level rise (SLR) and coastal flooding exposure. Previous research has demonstrated that the quality of data used in elevation-based assessments must be well understood and applied to properly model potential impacts. The cumulative vertical uncertainty of the input elevation data substantially controls the minimum increments of SLR and the minimum

Data that have been processed to allow analysis with a minimum of additional user effort are often referred to as Analysis Ready Data (ARD). The ability to perform large scale Landsat analysis relies on the ability to access observations that are geometrically and radiometrically consistent, and have had non-target features (clouds) and poor quality observations flagged so that they can be exclude

The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is a primary elevation data product that has been produced and distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Since its inception, the USGS has compiled and published topographic information in many forms, and the NED is a significant development in this long line of products that describe the land surface. The NED provides seamless raster elevation data of

Accurate estimates of cultivated area and crop yield are critical to our understanding of agricultural production and food security, particularly for semi-arid regions like the Sahel of West Africa, where crop production is mainly rain-fed and food security is closely correlated with the inter-annual variations in rainfall. Several global and regional land cover products, based on satellite remote

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) to provide consistent land cover and land cover change products for the nation since 2001. As one of products in the NLCD, the percent impervious surface area (ISA), which was estimated with Landsat imagery, represents the fraction of human-made impervious area in a 30-m grid and has been used to quantify urban

Earth observation data are increasingly used to provide consistent eco-physiological information over large areas through time. Production efficiency models (PEMs) estimate Gross Primary Production (GPP) as a function of the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the canopy, which is derived from Earth observation. GPP can be summed over the growing season and adjusted by a cr

Long and temporally consistent rainfall time series are essential in climate analyses and applications. Rainfall data from station observations are inadequate over many parts of the world due to sparse or non-existent observation networks, or limited reporting of gauge observations. As a result, satellite rainfall estimates have been used as an alternative or as a supplement to station observation

A methodology based on general hydraulic relations for rivers has been developed to estimate the discharge (flow rate) of rivers using satellite remote sensing observations. The estimates of discharge, flow depth, and flow velocity are derived from remotely observed water surface area, water surface slope, and water surface height, and demonstrated for two reaches of the Yukon River in Alaska, at