Wildfires have been increasing in frequency and size across North America in recent years. British Columbia is no exception to that trend; more than 4% of the heavily-forested province has burned since 2017. In 2023, Canada saw its worst wildfire season in recorded history. These high intensity fires affect ecosystem health and local economies, as timber is a major industry in BC.
Landsat collects data that helps effectively deal with intensifying wildfires—at all stages of the fire cycle.
A new study tracks the shifting dynamics of wildfires in western North America. Using Landsat-derived datasets and active fire information from geostationary satellites, researchers found that fires are burning through the night more often—and drought is partially to blame.
In the FY23 Aeronautics and Space Report released on May 23, 2024, a multitude of Federal agencies report work informed by Landsat data.
The Australian company Indji Systems uses a variety of satellite data to provide real-time hazard monitoring and alerts to utility and renewable energy companies across Australia, North America and Europe.
A new study using NASA satellite data reveals how drought affects the recovery of western ecosystems from fire, a result that could provide meaningful information for conservation efforts.
In an Instagram Live event titled “Guided by Science,” Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, spoke with USGS Director Dr. David Applegate. The Landsat portion of that discussion is shared here.
When Landsat’s vast decades-long archive is combined with data from other instruments it can provide amazing insight into how our world is evolving with us and around us. Here are some of the ways Landsat and GEDI data are being harnessed to help us better understand the complex relationship between humanity and nature.
Over the past few years, machine learning techniques have been increasingly used to analyze the vast amount of data collected by the Landsat mission, which has been circling the globe for over 50 years.
Applying AI to Earth data—including Landsat—helps terraPulse reveal sustainable options for farming, reforestation, and land management.
Merging data from multiple satellites, OPERA can help government agencies, disaster responders, and the public access data about natural and human impacts to the land.
Thirty-meter Landsat 8 and 9 data have been added to NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).
Landsat has shown that wildfires and climbing temperatures have caused a 6.7 percent decline in California tree cover since 1985.
A new study combines decades of Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery with hydrologic and oceanographic data to look at how changes on land affect coastlines in Big Sur, California.
Wildfires in the western United States have been spreading to higher elevations over the past few decades due to warmer and drier conditions that are clearly linked to climate change.
A new study reports a net increase of 5.38 petagrams of forest biomass between 1984 and 2016; carbon-wise, that is equivalent to a train of loaded coal cars long enough to wrap itself around Earth nearly 34 times.
LANDFIRE has released its Remap dataset; new techniques and new data provide significant improvement.
Fires in forested watersheds that support drinking water supplies can introduce contaminants that overwhelm current treatment capabilities. Earth observation data are helping.
Landsat helped confirm and quantify what was only anecdotally known before: beaver dams make wetlands uniquely resistant to wildfires.
Using satellite imagery is a cost-effective way to assess burned areas and triage mitigation measures post-wildfire, study found. Federal agencies can save as much as $7.7 million annually in post-fire costs by using Landsat.
Sprawling urban fires that once plagued civilization were thought to be a thing the past—the Camp Fire let us know they are back.
The first study that connects field-measured data with satellite-derived burn severity in this corner of the world.
The 2014 megafires in Canada’s Northwest Territories burned 7 million acres of forest, making it one of the most severe fire events in Canadian history.
A new indicator of fire risk for peat moss environments that relys on Landsat 8’s new blue band.
Finding out how fire severity affects soil microbes.
Forest resource managers, natural resource policy makers, and global change scientists need comprehensive, consistent, and up-to-date information on trends in forest cover and condition. This information is essential for understanding carbon budgets, predicting fire behavior, quantifying biodiversity, and hydrologic modeling.
Lighting ignited the Castle Rocks fire in the deep backcountry of Denali National Park and Preserve in early July, 2013. Over the next two months, the Castle Rocks fire would fluctuate between periods of activity and inactivity depending on changing weather conditions, eventually burning more than 12,900 acres by the time it was declared out on September 4, 2013. Remote even by Alaska standards, the Castle Rocks fire plotted approximately 100 miles to the west of Denali park headquarters and 160 miles southwest of Fairbanks.
Speeding around the Earth at 16,800 mph (27,000 kph), two Landsat satellites are quietly, expertly watching and recording changes in Earth’s lands from space. They are gathering data for people to make maps–all kinds of wonderful maps–of our cities growing, rivers flooding, lava flowing from volcanic eruptions, forests expanding or shrinking, crops greening through the growing season, and even of evidence of pollution.
Kirtland’s warblers are an endangered species of lightweight little birds with bright yellow-bellies that summer in North America and winter in the Bahamas. But be
Contributor: Melissa Quijada, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA satellite images regularly map active fires around the world. Once a fire is out, satellite data and
If your summer travels have taken you across the Rocky Mountains, you’ve probably seen large swaths of reddish trees dotting otherwise green forests. While it
Science brief summary by: Laura E. P. Rocchio A group of European researchers have used Landsat data collected over a quarter of a century to
Contributor: European Space Agency (ESA) Cleanup and rebuilding teams responding to the devastation across Greece caused by this summer’s deadly fires are getting help from
