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National Land Imaging Program

Our Nation’s economic security and environmental vitality rely on continuous monitoring of the Earth’s continents, islands, and coastal regions. 

The USGS National Land Imaging (NLI) Program makes it possible to record, study, and understand how the surface of the Earth is changing at local, regional, national and global scales. 

News

Mapping Mercury in San Francisco Bay

Mapping Mercury in San Francisco Bay

Landsat at Work: Satellites Help Extinguish Wildfire Risk

Landsat at Work: Satellites Help Extinguish Wildfire Risk

Latest in Landsat May 2025 - Vol. 4 | Issue 4

Publications

System characterization report on Resourcesat-2A Advanced Wide Field Sensor

Executive Summary This report documents the system characterization of the Indian Space Research Organisation Resourcesat-2A Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports describe the methodology and procedures used for...
Authors
Mahesh Shrestha, Minsu Kim, Aparajithan Sampath, Jeffrey Clauson

Landsat surface product validation instrumentation: The BigMAC exercise

Users of Earth remotely sensed optical imagery are increasingly demanding a surface reflectance or surface temperature product instead of the top-of-atmosphere products that have been produced historically. Validating the accuracy of surface products remains a difficult task since it involves assessment across a range of atmospheric profiles, as well as many different land surface types...
Authors
Dennis Helder, Mahesh Shrestha, Joshua J. Mann, Emily M. Maddox, Jeffrey Irwin, Larry Leigh, Aaron Gerace, Rehman Eon, Lucy Falcon, David Conran, Nina G. Raqueno, Timothy Bauch, Christopher Durell, Brandon Russell

System characterization report on Resourcesat-2A Linear Imaging Self Scanning-4 sensor

Executive Summary This report documents the system characterization of the Indian Space Research Organisation Resourcesat-2A Linear Imaging Self Scanning-4 (LISS–4) sensor. It is part of a series of system characterization reports produced by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports describe the methodology and...
Authors
Mahesh Shrestha, Aparajithan Sampath, Minsu Kim, Seonkyung Park, Jeffrey Clauson

Science

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Eyes on Earth Episode 134 – Data Accuracy: The Calibration and Validation of Landsat

Researchers and other satellite programs rely on the scientifically correct data from Landsat—every pixel and every spectral band that is measured.
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Eyes on Earth Episode 133 – Vietnam War Bomb Craters

No longer used for spying, declassified spy satellite imagery is finding fascinating new uses.
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WebDART: A Cutting-edge Web Tool that Evaluates Land Condition

WebDART is an online ecological assessment tool available to a wide audience that incorporates Landsat satellite remote sensing imagery, topography, geology, soil conditions, and rangeland geospatial and vegetation mapping to compare altered terrain with an unspoiled area that has similar characteristics in the same region. The tool gives resource managers, landowners, companies, and other...
link

WebDART: A Cutting-edge Web Tool that Evaluates Land Condition

WebDART is an online ecological assessment tool available to a wide audience that incorporates Landsat satellite remote sensing imagery, topography, geology, soil conditions, and rangeland geospatial and vegetation mapping to compare altered terrain with an unspoiled area that has similar characteristics in the same region. The tool gives resource managers, landowners, companies, and other...
Learn More
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