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.
Detecting Detrimental Change in Coral Reefs
Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover’s Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs.
EarthSky Interview with Martha Anderson: Using Landsat to Monitor Water Use from Space
Martha Anderson, a research scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, uses images from the Landsat satellite program to monitor water use and drought on U.S. farms with pinpoint accuracy,
Scientists Track Environmental Influences on Giant Kelp with Help from Landsat Data
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have developed new methods for studying how environmental factors and climate affect giant kelp forest ecosystems at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales. The scientists merged
Landsat Data Addresses Needs of California Growers
With the capability to provide valuable information about individual farm fields, vineyards, and orchards, NASA satellites soon will provide California growers in the San Joaquin Valley with important information about
Landsat Images Offer Clearer Picture of Changes in Chesapeake Watershed
• Images taken from satellites more than 400 miles above the Earth’s surface are bringing land-cover changes throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed into tighter focus. The images, which capture tracts
Water Watchers
Landsat doesn’t measure water vapor directly, but evaporating and transpiring water takes energy, something Landsat does observe. If they knew how much energy was going into driving evapotranspiration, Morse and Allen could estimate how much water a particular field of crops had consumed on any particular day.
