USGS Home
Contact USGS
Search USGS

Land Remote Sensing Program Featured Science Archive

NOTE: Links and contacts within this release are valid at the time of publication.

2011

The White House has initiated a year-long study called The Future of Land Imaging to explore options for United States operational use of satellites to better serve society. The USGS serves on the leadership team of this Federal interagency working group.

2010

Forest-cover Loss in Eastern US

Remote-sensing data, statistical sampling, and change-detection methods indicate that contemporary land-use pressures have a significant impact on the extent and condition of forests in the eastern United States, causing a regional-scale decline in forest cover. Across the East from 1973-2000 an important land-cover transition has occurred: from a mode of regional forest-cover gain to one of forest-cover loss caused by timber cutting cycles, urbanization, and other land-use demands.

BioScience article
Learn more about Land Cover Trends

---

Eagerly awaiting Landsat 8

The Earth Imaging Journal recently featured an article about a launch of vital importance to the global Earth observation science community in December 2012. The joint NASA/USGS Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) was created to investigate and research options for the most feasible solution to follow the Landsat 7 mission. NASA is acquiring the spacecraft to collect and provide data to DOI/USGS. The USGS is responsible for the operations of this mission, along with collecting, archiving, processing, and distributing the data to the U.S. Government and other users. The Landsat Science Team has been established to address the science goals of the mission. NASA and the USGS plan to implement LDCM in a manner that does not preclude a long-term solution for continuity of Landsat-type data. OLI Instrument   Learn more

Tracking Nature's Cycles

Phenology is the study of recurring biological cycles such as plant budding and animal migrations. The earliest known phenological records were compiled by the Chinese approximately 1000 BC. Today, USGS Remote Sensing Phenology scientists use satellites to track seasonal changes in vegetation on regional, continental, and global scales. Remotely sensed phenological data are useful for assessing crop conditions, drought severity, and wildfire risk as well as tracking invasive species, infectious diseases, and insect pests. Because phenological events are sensitive to climate variation, these data also represent a powerful tool for documenting phenological trends over time and detecting the impacts of climate change on ecosystems at multiple scales. Learn more...

---

Archive 2009

Landsat 7 helps track Antarctica's emperor penguins

Landsat 7 satellite imagery is used to track Antarctica's emperor penguins. This true-color image, acquired by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on the Landsat 7 satellite, 12-4-2002, captures brown stains of penquin guano. Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), discovered that looking for guano stains is more reliable than looking for actual penguins since the birds' tuxedo colors blend in with the shadows on the ice. By locating penguin droppings, the BAS team identified 38 emperor penguin colonies along the Antarctic coast. Learn more...

Landsat 5 captures Mt. Redoubt

On March 1, 2009, Landsat 5 acquired a clear image of the Mt. Redoubt region in Alaska. Scientists have been carefully monitoring the area as Mt. Redoubt has experienced volcanic tremors and gas releases in recent months, activities normally associated with possible eruptions. Landsat 5, having completed 25 years of global observations on March 1 provides a useful tool for monitoring global land surface features and changes. Learn More...

---

Kingston Fossil Plant Flood

At approximately 1:00a.m. on December 22, 2008, an earthen dam holding a containment pond at the Kingston, Tennessee Fossil Plant gave way, releasing over 500 million gallons of ash and sludge. In a brief time downstream areas were flooded, some with as much as six feet of debris. More than 12 homes were affected, a number of them were destroyed or moved off their foundations. No lives were lost though many families were displaced and the Emory River and shorelines were inundated. Landsat 5 data, acquired the morning of the 22nd, illustrate the effects of the break. The light blue tones in the water bodies indicate sediment flow from the flooding. Clear water in the region has a darker blue tone. Recovery agencies will use the Landsat data and other sources of information on the area to study the extent of the damage and the long term effects of the dam break.

Archive 2008

Cyclone Nargis — 2008

Landsat satellite imagery, acquired shortly before and after Cyclone Nargis hit the coastal region of Myanamr on May 3, 2008, illustrate the flooding and destruction caused by the cyclone. The delta region, which is home to one fourth of Myanmar's 57 million people, is a major agricultural area and its lowlands make it especially susceptible to flooding. The cyclone created a 3.6 meter storm surge which devastated the area. At least 22,000 deaths have been reported, with 41,000 listed as missing. Over 1 million are homeless. Learn More.

---

Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica

LIMA brings the coldest continent on Earth alive in greater detail than ever before through this virtually cloudless, seamless, and high resolution satellite view of Antarctica. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), created LIMA from more than 1,000 Landsat ETM+ scenes. For more information visit LIMA and Landsat.

Press Release

Archive 2007

Georgia Fires

Satellite remote sensing research and applications are essential for providing required data for mapping fire fuels, assessing fire effects, monitoring fire danger, and measuring progress in implementing the National Fire Plan. Land management agencies, scientific communities, and citizenry affected by wildland fires can benefit from research and development of consistent and accurate geospatial fire data, maps, and assessment produced at various scales. To learn more visit USGS Satellite Data Applications for Fire Science

Archive 2006

South California wildfire

The nearly 11,000 acres affected by the Sierra fire in Orange County, California are seen in these Landsat 5 images. The image on the left was acquired three days prior to the breakout of the fire. The image on the right was acquired the day the fire was contained. The burned areas show as the deep red tones in the center of the right image. View the above image in higher resolution or visit the Landsat Web Site for more images.

Archive 2005

Katrina

View the larger size image to see the changes to New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina.

Archive 2004

Asian Tsunami

Within hours of the Asian Tsunami, the USGS National Center for Earth Resources Observation and Sciences (EROS) began providing pre-and post-tsunami satellite images and other vital information to help planners for disaster response from many agencies and organizations make well-informed decisions.

---

Gap-Filled Products available soon

This image is a preview of the new Gap-Filled products that will soon be available from the USGS. The left image is path 39 row 37, acquired over Salton Sea in southern California on 9/17/2003, and shows the scan gaps caused by the failed Scan Line Corrector (SLC). The right image is the same data, but with the gaps filled by data acquired 9/14/2002. More....

To view and print the PDF you must obtain and install the Acrobat® Reader, available at no charge from Adobe Systems.

Document Accessibility: Adobe Systems Incorporated has information about PDFs and the visually impaired. This information provides tools to help make PDF files accessible. These tools convert Adobe PDF documents into HTML or ASCII text, which then can be read by a number of common screen-reading programs that synthesize text as audible speech. In addition, an accessible version of Acrobat Reader 7.0 for Windows (English only), which contains support for screen readers, is available. These tools and the accessible reader may be obtained free from Adobe at Adobe Access.