Landsat’s Role in Managing Water Resources
Water is essential for life. A third of Earth’s populace has unreliable access to clean water. With current population growth and environmental trends, the U.N. Environmental Program estimates that 1.8 billion people will face water scarcity by 2025. Water means survival for people and other species we rely upon to thrive, making proper stewardship of our water resources vital. Good decisions require good data. Since 1972 the Landsat series of satellites has been providing such data. Landsat-based decisions on how to manage limited water resources have impacted millions of people worldwide. From finding water for refugees in arid nations to reducing pollution in our national waterways, Landsat enables decisions that directly help people.
![Alaska's Yukon Flats](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Yukon-Flats-Study-Area_1-1024x636-1.jpg)
Landsat, Permafrost Data Offer Insight into Arctic Lake Dynamics
Remarkably little is known about the subsurface connections between the thousands of lakes scattered across ecoregions like Yukon Flats; this study sheds light on those lakes.
![An animation highlighting the connection between river bend curvature and river migration](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/curvature.jpg)
Sharp Bends Make Rivers Meander, As Landsat Attests
Turns out, the rate of river migration is directly linked to how sharp its bends are.
![Sampling invertebrates within deep mudflats in Gladstone, Australia.](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/20190128_intertidal1-1.jpg)
Loss of Intertidal Ecosystem Exposes Coastal Communities
The study used machine-learning to analyze more than 700,000 Landsat images to map changing global distribution of intertidal areas over a 30-year period.
![irrigation](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/20181214_n5-1.png)
Mapping Water Use Nationwide With Landsat
USGS EROS scientists are leveraging the capability and history of Landsat along with weather data to map landscape-wide water consumption.
![Photograph of a secondary avulsion channel in a Yakima County river in Washington](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/20181214_n4-1.png)
How Landsat Helps Alert Communities to Local Flood Hazards
For larger rivers, Landsat provides a rich dataset to define spatiotemporal patterns of channel shifting.
![Vineyard](https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Fotolia_44582350_M-300x199-1.jpg)
Landsat Thermal Data Provides Insight to Vintners
Landsat thermal bands allow for the measurement of water use and moisture status at the management scale.