Landsat's Role in Responding to Disasters
In 2022, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) reported 387 natural hazards and disasters worldwide, resulting in the loss of over 30,000 lives and affecting more than 185 million individuals. Economic losses totaled around US$223.8 billion. Fires, floods, heat waves, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters can be particularly tragic and costly when critical facilities such as power plants, airports, roads, and hospitals are threatened. When a disaster strikes, remote sensing is often the only way to get a big-picture view of what is happening on the ground. With its consistent, reliable, repeated observations of Earth’s changing surface, Landsat keeps a record of Earth’s land surfaces before and after disasters, serving as an essential tool for assessing risk, mapping the extent of damage, and planning post-disaster recovery. Landsat produces 185-kilometer-wide images with 30-meter resolution in visible and infrared wavelengths of light, making it possible to map impacts on the landscape in ways otherwise not visible to human sight. For example, Landsat sensors enable us to see the heat from fires both during and after the burns, and the lava flows from volcanic eruptions even when gaseous substances obscure the view to human eyes.
Mt. St. Helens, 37 Years of Recovery
In the decades since the Mount St. Helens eruption, scientists have studied the recovery of the ecosystem around the mountain using the Landsat series of satellites.
UNOSAT Maps Flood Extent Near Lake Urmia with Landsat 8
A Landsat 8-based map showing regions south of Iran’s Lake Urmia that have been effected by recent flooding has been created for UN decision makers.
Landsat Images Provided to the Disaster Charter, Feb. 2017
This month, 37 Landsat scenes were ingested by the USGS Hazard Data Distribution System to provide data for Charter activations.
Landsat Images Provided to the Disaster Charter, Jan. 2017
The International Charter is a system that supplies free satellite imagery to emergency responders anywhere in the world. The Charter concept is this: a single phone number is made available to authorized
LANDFIRE 2014 Update Completed for CONUS
The LANDFIRE 2014 Update for the conterminous United States has been completed, with Alaska and Hawaii soon to follow.
Landsat Images Provided to the Disaster Charter, Dec. 2016
You can think of the Charter as a one-stop-shop for impact maps—an essential resource, since in many cases satellite data are the only practical method to assess current ground conditions after a disaster.