Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

Satellite data is everywhere. It’s in the swirling clouds of the nightly news weather forecasts and the land surface maps beneath them. It’s in our pockets, showing up as base layers in smartphone mapping applications.

He started at EROS in November 1980. His first job—data analyst in Science and Applications. From there, John Dwyer traveled a wide-ranging and opportunistic path through what he calls an incredibly satisfying career here at the Center.

Volker Radeloff works in the remote sensing realm of calamity.

Where there’s been war, government collapse, even massive natural and man-made disasters, Radeloff peers through aerial and satellite imagery and documents the socioeconomic aftershocks that typically follow such widescale upheaval to landscapes and land uses.

In 1850, the island of Nahlapenlohd in Micronesia was sprawling enough to support a great battle among warring chiefdoms within its sizeable coconut forest. But that was then. Today, Nahlapenlohd and seven nearby islands in the western Pacific are no more, having been swallowed by the rising sea.

What should Landsat 10—what some are calling Landsat Next, the next generation Landsat observing system—look like when it’s launched in the middle to later 2020s? What should its capabilities be? And how might it be different while continuing the same consistency of Earth observations for which its Landsat predecessors are known?

The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center hosts more than 6,000 visitors every year, and there’s plenty to see.

In the land of Kamehameha, south of Kona on the big island of Hawaii, a sacred landscape called Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau faces the uncertainty of the rising seas.

The bones of royal chiefs rest there. Stories of how ancient Hawaiian lawbreakers flocked to this place of refuge still resonate throughout the 180-acre national historic park that surrounds Hōnaunau Bay.

With the global inventory of Earth observation satellites growing by the week, questions of data quality and integration take on great significance.

With the Landsat 9 launch scheduled in less than 18 months, this question about Landsat 7 was posed to the Landsat Science Team (LST) during its June meeting at the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.

What should be done with the old bird?

One of the key elements of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) bold new Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative is its potential to project how land cover across the country may change in the future.

There are 2.2 million people in Somalia at risk for malnutrition this year.

The reasons are myriad, but the ravages of drought – crop failures, food shortages, spiking food prices - are primary drivers of that risk.