Land Change Science
Land Change Science Program
The Land Change Science (LCS) Program strives to advance the understanding of the rates, causes, and consequences of climate and land use change, and the vulnerability and resilience of the Earth system to such changes.
News
New National Heat Index Uses USGS Data
New National Heat Index Uses USGS Data
USGS and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory release database and interactive map of all large-scale solar energy facilities in the U.S.
USGS and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory release database and interactive map of all large-scale solar energy facilities in the U.S.
Publications
Toward a set of essential biodiversity variables for assessing change in mountains globally
Mountain regions harbor unique and rich biodiversity, forming an important part of our global life support system. This rich biodiversity underpins the ecological intactness and functioning of mountain ecosystems, which are imperative for the provision of key ecosystem services. A considerable amount of data are required to assess ecological intactness and ecosystem functioning and, given the prof
Increasing seasonal variation in the extent of rivers and lakes from 1984 to 2022
Knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of surface water is important for water resource management, flood risk assessment, monitoring ecosystem health, constraining estimates of biogeochemical cycles and understanding our climate. While global-scale spatiotemporal change detection of surface water has significantly improved in recent years due to planetary-scale remote sensing and comp
Space-based Earth observation and ecosystem extent: Exploring opportunities
The purpose of this white paper is to explore and communicate potential new opportunities for using space-based Earth observation (EO) for monitoring biodiversity with a focus on ecosystem extent (the distribution of ecosystems on the Earth). It is part of a new activity of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), a collaboration of the world’s space agencies that facilitates cross-ag
Science
Ecosystems on the Edge: Landscape and Fire Ecology of Forests, Deserts, and Tundra
Climate changes and interacting disturbances such as wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, and erosion and flooding can perturb and reorganize ecosystems.
Understanding the Effects of Stormwater Management Practices on Water Quality and Flow
Urban development can have detrimental impacts on streams including altering hydrology, increasing nutrient, sediment, and pollutant loadings, and degrading biological integrity. Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be used to mitigate the effects of urban development by retaining large volumes of stormwater runoff and treating runoff to remove pollutants. This project focuses on...
USGS EROS Archive - Landsat - Atmospheric Auxiliary Data – GEOS-5 IT C2
Data from Goddard Earth Observing V5 (GEOS-5 IT) are used in the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 surface temperature algorithm.