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.
How Much Water Flows into Ag Irrigation? Landsat Knows
Researchers detail their use of satellite images to produce annual maps of irrigation.
USGS Video: Landsat in Action—Interview with Alan Belward
Alan Belward from the European Union’s Joint Research Center discusses how Landsat helps his team promote sustainable development.
Oyster Prospecting with Landsat 8
In the first study of its kind, researchers from the University of Maine have demonstrated that Landsat 8 satellite data can be used to find locations where oysters farms should thrive.
Mapping Chesapeake's Future From Today's Land Use
USGS’ pixel-by-pixel land use forecasts offer essential road maps for restoration.
Welcome to the Intertidal Zone: Mapping Australia’s Coast with Landsat
Using 28 years of Landsat data, an Australian research team has created a continent-wide intertidal zone extent map for the whole of the Australian coast.
How Landsat Data Led to a Breakthrough for Lake Erie Toxic Algal Blooms
With the growing frequency and magnitude of toxic freshwater algal blooms becoming an increasingly worrisome public health concern, Carnegie scientists Jeff Ho and Anna Michalak, along with colleagues, have made new advances in understanding the drivers behind Lake Erie blooms and their implications for lake restoration.