Landsat Science

Landsat Science

Landsat Science

Landsat Science

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

NPS ranger boards a cruise ship in Glacier Bay

The Satellite Stewards of Glacier Bay

October 19, 2022

Nestled in the science-based information that park rangers share with visitors to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve are insights from Landsat satellites and NASA climate scientists.

Screenshot of the FIRMS interface

Landsat Fire and Thermal Anomaly Data Now Part of FIRMS

October 27, 2022

Thirty-meter Landsat 8 and 9 data have been added to NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).

The Landsat Chamber Orchestra

Celebrating 50 Years of Earth Observation with the Landsat Chamber Orchestra

October 21, 2022

On Saturday, October 15, the Visitors Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center presented an audio/visual event in celebration of Landsat’s 50th anniversary.

Map of likely Hurricane Ian damage

Quickly Assessing the Aftermath of Hurricane Ian with Satellites

October 5, 2022

UCONN remote sensing experts used Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 imagery to quickly assess damage caused by the storm’s aftermath, providing spatially-relevant situational awareness that could aid rescue efforts.

NPS ranger boards a cruise ship in Glacier Bay

The Satellite Stewards of Glacier Bay

October 19, 2022

Nestled in the science-based information that park rangers share with visitors to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve are insights from Landsat satellites and NASA climate scientists.

Screenshot of the FIRMS interface

Landsat Fire and Thermal Anomaly Data Now Part of FIRMS

October 27, 2022

Thirty-meter Landsat 8 and 9 data have been added to NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).

The Landsat Chamber Orchestra

Celebrating 50 Years of Earth Observation with the Landsat Chamber Orchestra

October 21, 2022

On Saturday, October 15, the Visitors Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center presented an audio/visual event in celebration of Landsat’s 50th anniversary.

Map of likely Hurricane Ian damage

Quickly Assessing the Aftermath of Hurricane Ian with Satellites

October 5, 2022

UCONN remote sensing experts used Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 imagery to quickly assess damage caused by the storm’s aftermath, providing spatially-relevant situational awareness that could aid rescue efforts.

Lava Flows North on Mauna Loa

December 5, 2022

A Burst of Activity at Mount Semeru

December 5, 2022

Larger Wheat Harvest in Ukraine Than Expected

December 2, 2022

“The results of the Scopus bibliometric analysis indicate that inland water quality remote sensing has been growing dramatically since its introduction in the 1970s…The most pronounced year-on-year jump occurs right after 2008, which corresponds to the public release of freely available Landsat imagery by NASA and the US Geological Survey…This result is consistent with previous research showing that for multiple earth observation fields, the release of the Landsat archive resulted in more fr…

— Simon N. Topp et al., 2020 , Jan 7, 2020

“A sizable portion of our greenhouse gas contribution to the atmosphere comes from land use. And having Landsat data to look back to the 1970s, from there to now, you can then calculate or approximate year-by-year what that contribution is, and that’s extremely important.”

— Compton Tucker, a NASA scientist who studies forests and climate change , Jan 13, 2010

“The availability and accessibility of remotely sensed digital imagery obtained from Landsat satellites allow coastal scientist—and more importantly community members—the opportunity to map, evaluate and continuously monitor shoreline movement at regular intervals given the unprecedented pace of Arctic climate change.”

— Dr. Ravi Darwin Sankar, geologist with the Arctic Institute of North America & the University of Calgary in Canada , Dec 12, 2019

“With the Landsat satellite system capable of delivering global coverage every 8 days, we have an unprecedented ability to monitor global forest change. The 2014 tree cover loss data, incorporating hundreds of thousands of Landsat images, confirms that deforestation is not just high in certain countries, it’s speeding up. The next step is to use this information to improve forest protection and more equitably balance economic development with the invaluable ecosystem services forests provid…

— Matt Hansen, Professor of Geography, University of Maryland , Sep 2, 2015

“An engineering degree opens many doors. It has served me well.”

— Jeanine Murphy-Morris , Mar 4, 2014

“The long-term acquisition plan of the Landsat mission provides a unique and invaluable dataset for tracking multi-decadal changes in the density and distribution of mangroves at continental scales.”

— Dr. Leo Lymburner, Landsat Science Team Member , Dec 4, 2019

“The Landsat series of satellites is a cornerstone of our Earth observing capability. The world relies on Landsat data to detect and measure land cover/land use change, the health of ecosystems, and water availability.”

— Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator , Mar 4, 2015

“The future looks really exciting…”

— Curtis Woodcock, on Landsat science and applications , Jul 9, 2015

“With its superhuman sight, and decades of archived imagery, Landsat provides us with the ability to see through time, to track the vegetal movement which is beyond our normal sight and to see it for what it really is: a titanic unfolding of active and intentional life.”

— James Bridle, writer and artist , Jun 1, 2022

“We like to think about Landsat as being, for this particular problem, sort of the sweet spot—the perfect asset. We found Landsat was really good at mapping the bulk of biomass for this particular test area we were looking at.”

— Michael Sayers, Research Scientist, Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), on mapping submerged aquatic vegetation in the Great Lakes , Jul 9, 2021

“We recognize the essential role forests play in the long-term health of our planet, in contributing to sustainable development, and in meeting our shared goal of avoiding dangerous climate change. More than a billion people depend directly on forests for their livelihoods, and the remaining six billion of us depend on forests for a variety of economic, social, and environmental benefits such as the rainfall, biodiversity, pollinators, carbon storage, and clean water they provide. Forests a…

— Leaders of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, United Kingdom, and the United States , Dec 1, 2015

“Continental scale applications of medium and high-resolution earth observation data are becoming increasingly important and feasible, driven largely by free and open access to the Landsat archive…the Landsat archive offers a temporal dimension for decades long retrospective analysis and ongoing monitoring capabilities.”

— Sagar et al., 2018 , Mar 20, 2018

“The ability to see what was happening through time through Landsat imagery helped us tremendously… from sea-level, we hadn’t seen the signs of retreat that the Landsat imagery showed us—the diminishing of the glaciers, of the size and mass of the glaciers. It rocked our world. It truly changed the narrative of interpretation in Glacier Bay. The story that we shared with visitors about glaciers in Glacier Bay was transformed by that information.”

— Laura Buchheit, National Park Service Ranger , Oct 19, 2022

“The long, consistent view of Earth from space provided by Landsat sparks advances in science, enables more efficient natural resources management, and promotes profitable applications of the data in commerce and industry. In step with the National Research Council and other objective reviews, the non-federal Landsat Advisory Group has found that the broad benefits of Landsat far outweigh the cost.”

— USGS press release , Jan 14, 2015

“That’s the beauty of Landsat—it allows us to quantify these spatial patterns that are of high interest to water managers.”

— Dr. Mark Broich, geospatial researcher at the University of New South Wales , May 29, 2018

“Understanding how this planet works and helping people make better, informed decisions is really what we’re about in Earth Science.”

— Karen St. Germain, director of NASA's Earth Science Division , Nov 21, 2022

“Land cover is fundamental for a plethora of applications. Approaches using #Landsat time series have been transformative.”

— Dr. Joanne C. White, Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service , May 6, 2020

“Within Australia, Earth Observation is so commonly used across all levels of government, industry and society that the minimum economic impact of Earth Observation from space-borne sensors alone is approximately $5.3 billion each year [Australian $; ~4.15B US$].”

— Australian Earth Observation Community Coordinating Group , Oct 2, 2017

“The first step of ecosystem accounting is to actually map the dynamics of ecosystems over time.”

— Celio De Sousa; NASA research scientist who uses Landsat data to create countrywide land cover maps , Mar 11, 2021

“Satellite imagery can be used retrospectively, meaning that the data collected by satellites today will probably help solve issues we are not currently even aware of—an advantage which is invaluable.”

— Nathalie Pettorelli, Zoological Society of London , Jun 10, 2015

“There should be no competition between satellite remote sensing and fieldwork, there should only be collaborations.”

— Nathalie Pettorelli, Zoological Society of London , Jun 10, 2015

“The USGS’s Landsat mission has an incredible 40-year record of the planet’s changing landscape, with virtually every spot imaged every eight days. It’s an incredible scientific asset.”

— Betsy Mason , Oct 14, 2014

“Without Landsat it would be essentially impossible to get good Ground Control Point locations from other sources.”

— Frank Warmerdam, Planet Labs , May 25, 2015

“We have a globally consistent, locally relevant map product that can be used in a variety of applications: estimating emissions from deforestation, modeling biodiversity, assessing protected areas, and studying forest and human health. We plan to move our record forward and backward where Landsat has a sufficiently rich archive of data.”

— Matthew Hansen, University of Maryland , May 7, 2015

The NASA/USGS Landsat Program provides the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence. Landsat data give us information essential for making informed decisions about Earth’s resources and environment.