Landsat’s Critical Role in Managing Ecosystems and Biodiversity
Our world is made of complex networks of living things and physical elements that constantly interact and affect each other. Such networks are known as “ecosystems.” Healthy and economically important ecosystems such as temperate forests, wetlands, grasslands, coastal zones, coral reefs, and rainforests all play roles in human life. For example, farm and rangeland ecosystems must be healthy to produce the grains and livestock on which we depend as a nation. Marine ecosystems depend on the health of land ecosystems, because coastal areas provide habitat needed to support the productivity and diversity of aquatic organisms. Landsat has brought valuable capabilities to ecosystem studies. Landsat instruments measure reflected light in visible and infrared wavelengths. Because plants reflect little visible light and a lot of infrared light when they are healthy, the measurement of both types of light simultaneously gives scientists a way to assess plant health and density over a landscape. Measurements are detailed enough while still covering a wide area that ecologists can expand their interpretations of local events and processes, such as an insect infestation in a specific forest, to a regional scale. This helps them to gauge the health of larger ecosystems. Because Landsat data are accurately mapped to reference points on the ground and adjusted for topographic relief, they can be integrated with other geographic data sets and models to explore more complex studies of ecosystems and biodiversity across space and time.

Landsat Shows the Collapse of Northern California Kelp Forests
Most of Northern California’s kelp forest ecosystem is gone, replaced by widespread ‘urchin barrens’ that may persist long into the future, according to a new study.

Landsat & Drones Used to Reconstruct Past Environmental Change
Vegetation cover along the Kuiseb River in the Namib Desert has increased over the last 35 years, Landsat has helped show.

A Well-Rooted Study
Using Landsat to keep an eye on the trees offers an effective way to monitor groundwater along river corridors in the Southwest.

Landsat Imagery Could Help an Endangered Bird
By Morgan Spehar, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center The Yuma Ridgway’s rail, a chicken-sized bird that looks like a cross between a duck and a crane, hides away in the marshes

Earth Observations are for the Birds
Earth observations and citizen science are informing a program called BirdReturns to help restore lost natural wetlands.

Satellite Data Meets Cellular DNA for Species of Interest
Scientists are combining data from water samples containing fish DNA with satellite data to find native fish and identify their habitats.