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Requirements Capabilities & Analysis for Earth Observations

The USGS National Land Imaging Program evaluates satellite capabilities to determine effective solutions for addressing civil agency and societal challenges, allowing land managers and policymakers to make informed decisions about natural resources and the environment. A user-centered, solution-driven approach creates a robust suite of innovative earth observation technology, data, and services.

Meetings and Workshops

 

Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) Workshops

Annual JACIE Workshops are sponsored by government agencies and allow remote sensing experts to discuss system capabilities, calibration, and the impacts of data quality on various applications. The JACIE 2024 Workshop was held on March 11-14, 2024 at the USGS Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. 

The JACIE 2025 Workshop will be held April 7 - 11, 2025. 

 

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High Resolution Orthoimagery Hoover Dam 2006

 

Imagery Quality Assessment

We assess the quality of commercial high-resolution satellite imagery and provide the results in a series of system characterization reports. 

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Landsat Dynamic Surface Water Extent Example

 

Explore Landsat Science Products 

Landsat science products provide analysis ready data, including surface reflectance, surface temperature, aquatic reflectance, dynamic surface water extent, fractional snow covered area, burned area, and provisional actual evapotranspiration. 

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Landsat 9 Image of Shiveluch Volcano April 15, 2023

 

Look for Data 

Landsat and other land imaging products are available from multiple data portals, including EarthExplorer, commercial cloud access, and the EROS Science Processing Architecture On Demand Interface (ESPA), which supports higher-level data processing requests. 

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News

Upcoming Interruption to EROS Processing and Distribution Systems

Upcoming Interruption to EROS Processing and Distribution Systems

2025 William T. Pecora Award Nominations Now Being Accepted

2025 William T. Pecora Award Nominations Now Being Accepted

USGS Seeks Input on AI/ML Methods for Improving Landsat Flight Operations

USGS Seeks Input on AI/ML Methods for Improving Landsat Flight Operations

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

Earth observation remote sensing tools—Assessing systems, trends, and characteristics

With the ever-increasing number of civil and commercial remote-sensing satellite launches in recent years, the Earth Observation community needs to better understand the quality of new data products as they become available for scientific research purposes.
Authors
Simon J. Cantrell, Jeff Clauson, Cody Anderson

Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE)

The Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) was formed to leverage resources from several Federal agencies for the characterization of remote sensing data and to share those results across the remote sensing community (U.S. Geological Survey, 2024).Remote sensing data and the quality of that data are vital to (1) understanding the physical world and (2) supporting the science...
Authors
Jeff Clauson, Cody Anderson, Jim Vrabel
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