Latest in Landsat November 2024 - Vol. 3 | Issue 11
Seeking New Landsat Science Team
Request for Proposal now open
The USGS and NASA look for new Landsat Science Team members with Landsat Next's launch on the horizon.
The new team will focus on providing relevant science and technical evaluations and recommendations on a number of issues pertinent to the Landsat program, maximizing the value of the Landsat archive, and addressing the unique challenges of next-generation Earth observation systems. The team will also play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the Landsat program, supporting the ongoing operations of Landsat 8 and 9 while contributing to the development of Landsat Next.
Visit this Landsat Missions News article to learn more about the Landsat Science Teams and access the RFP. Proposals must be submitted by December 17, 2024.
Landsat's Economic Value Soars!
A new report about the Landsat Satellite Program calculates its 2023 value at \$25.6 billion to direct data users— a marked increase from its 2017 estimate of \$3.45 billion.
The “Economic Valuation of Landsat and Landsat Next 2023” study also highlights indirect benefits from additional generated value and cost savings totaling more than \$1B.
The report estimates Landsat Next's multi-spectral trio of satellites, scheduled for launch in the early 2030s, could increase the annual economic benefit by another 30%.
View this USGS News article to learn more about the study and access the full report.
A New Era in Land Use/ Land Cover Information
Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) released
The newly released Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Collection 1 offers improved land cover information for each year from 1985-2023 for the lower 48 United States. Previously, NLCD offered land cover information every two to three years from 2001 to 2021. Now, by employing high performance and cloud computing processes, updates to the NLCD can be made faster, and will be made each year. Each update to the collection will include information from the previous year - as, the 2025 update will include information from 2024.
Landsat satellites provide the long time series of data that allows users of Annual NLCD to compare change over time such as city growth, wildfire effects and forest fluctuations.
Check out the articles below to learn more about the new Annual NLCD.
-
USGS Reinvents Widely Used NLCD
On your next drive, really look at what covers the landscape: Sprawling housing developments? Crowded skyscrapers? Parking lots? Farm fields? Forests? Rivers?
The USGS has led the way in accurately mapping this land cover across the country with the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for more than two decades. Now NLCD debuts big improvements under a new name: Annual NLCD.
-
USGS Releases New Products that Map Four Decades of Land Cover Change
RESTON, Va. — The U.S. Geological Survey today released a newly updated and improved National Land Cover Database, known as Annual NLCD, which offers insights into the changing characteristics of landscapes across the conterminous United States from 1985 to 2023.
-
NLCD’s Path from Early Landscape Snapshot to Decades of Change
The widely used National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has long been the foundational land cover source for scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers across the United States, trusted for its accurate and unbiased data.
Here, we’re exploring the evolution of NLCD through its reinvention this year as Annual NLCD.
Don't miss these interesting articles!
-
New Tutorials Help Navigate Landsat Data in the Cloud
Tutorials are now available to provide guidance and help users access, query, and use Landsat data directly from the USGS cloud storage location.
-
USGS Satellites and Test Tubes Meet to Ensure Safe Drinking Water
Even on the ground, detecting algae type by color is not a sure bet. It takes lab testing to tell whether the skim of algae on the surface of a lake, pond or stream is harmless or potentially toxic.
-
Landsat 7 Brought Jobs, Science, Art and Memories to USGS
All Landsat satellites have been important to the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. After all, storing and distributing Landsat data is the reason the EROS Center was created.
But as Landsat 7 completed its mission this year and we look back 25 years, the anticipation and excitement of the satellite’s launch in 1999 nearly rivaled the first Landsat’s launch in 1972.
A New Flow for the Klamath (Image of the Week)
The Klamath River, flowing from the high desert interior of Oregon and through the redwood forests of California, once produced large runs of salmon and trout. However, the construction of hydroelectric dams, beginning in 1918, blocked fish migration, encroached on Indigenous culture, and impacted water quality.Following more than 20 years of negotiation from tribal and environmental groups, a…
Eyes on Earth Episode 125 – The LANDFIRE Program at 20
In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE) project, which is commemorating its 20th year of providing geospatial data to support natural resource management and wildland fire planning. LANDFIRE brings a lot of data together, over 30 data products, into one place. The publicly available, consistent data maps disturbance to…
Landsat Benefits, State By State
More than 400 miles above the Earth, Landsat satellites capture images of our planet. From mapping wildfires and permafrost thaw in Alaska to tracking algal blooms and spongy moth invasions in Ohio, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Program offers an expansive list of benefits across all 50 States.
