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Publications

Below is a list of the most recent EROS peer-reviewed scientific papers, reports, fact sheets, and other publications. You can search all our publication holdings by type, topic, year, and order.

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Filter Total Items: 2390

Characterizing urban heat islands across 50 major cities in the United States

Urban development and associated land-cover and land-use change alters the environment. The continued increase of developed land changes the Earth’s ecosystems and affects the resources provided to society. During the last 40 years, urban population in the United States has increased by more than 6.3 percent, and more than 80 percent of the U.S. population resides in urban areas. One of the change
Authors
George Z. Xian

Need and vision for global medium-resolution Landsat and Sentinel-2 data products

Global changes in climate and land use are threatening natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem services people rely on. This is why it is necessary to track and monitor spatiotemporal change at a level of detail that can inform science, management, and policy development. The current constellation of multiple Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites collecting imagery at predominantly ≤30-m s
Authors
Volker C. Radeloff, David P. Roy, Mike Wulder, Martha Anderson, Bruce D. Cook, Christopher J. Crawford, Mark Friedl, Feng Gao, Noel Gorelick, Matthew Hansen, Sean Healey, Patrick Hostert, Glynn Hulley, Justin Huntington, Dave Johnson, Christopher Neigh, Alexei Lyapustin, Leo Lymburner, Nima Pahlevan, Jean-Francois Pekel, Theodore A. Scambos, Crystal Schaaf, Peter Strobl, Eric Vermote, Curtis Woodcock, Hankui K. Zhang, Zhe Zhu

Implementing a dual-spectrometer approach for improved surface reflectance estimation

Surface reflectance measurement is an integral part of the vicarious calibration of satellite sensors and the validation of satellite-derived top-of-atmosphere (TOA) and surface reflectance products. A well-known practice for estimating surface reflectance is to conduct a field campaign with a spectrometer and a calibration panel, which is labor-intensive and expensive. To address this issue, the
Authors
Mahesh Shrestha, Joshua J. Mann, Emily Maddox, Terry J. Robbins, Jeffrey Irwin, Travis Kropuenske, Dennis Helder

System characterization report on the Pléiades Neo Imager

Executive SummaryThis report addresses system characterization of the Pléiades Neo satellite and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced and delivered by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports present and detail the methodology and procedures for characterization; present technical and operational infor
Authors
Simon J. Cantrell, Aparajithan Sampath, James C. Vrabel, Paul Bresnahan, Cody Anderson, Minsu Kim, Seonkyung Park

Investigating permafrost carbon dynamics in Alaska with artificial intelligence

Positive feedbacks between permafrost degradation and the release of soil carbon into the atmosphere impact land–atmosphere interactions, disrupt the global carbon cycle, and accelerate climate change. The widespread distribution of thawing permafrost is causing a cascade of geophysical and biochemical disturbances with global impacts. Currently, few earth system models account for permafrost carb
Authors
Bradley Gay, Neal Pastick, Andreas Zufle, Amanda Armstrong, Kimberly Miner, J.J. Qu

A global long-term daily reanalysis of reference evapotranspiration for drought and food-security monitoring

NOAA has developed a global reference evapotranspiration (ET0) reanalysis using the UN Food and Agriculture Organization formulation (FAO-56) of the Penman-Monteith equation forced by MERRA phase 2 (MERRA2) meteorological and radiative drivers. The NOAA ET0 reanalysis is provided daily from January 1, 1980 to the near-present at a resolution of 0.5° latitude × 0.625° longitude. The reanalysis is v
Authors
Mike Hobbins, Timen Jansma, Daniel Sarmiento, Amy McNally, Tamuka Magadzire, Harikishan Jayanthi, Will Turner, Andrew Hoell, Greg Husak, Gabriel B. Senay, Olena Boiko, Michael Budde, Pamella Magone, Candida Dewes

LANDFIRE

Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE) is a key national geospatial data source for strategic fire and resource management planning and analysis. LANDFIRE is the first complete, nationally consistent collection of more than 25 geospatial layers, databases, and ecological models at a 30-meter resolution that describe disturbance, vegetation, fire, and fuel characteristics.
Authors
Jennifer L. Long, Timothy D. Hatten

ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 2, 2023

Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat Cal/Val Team
Authors
Md Obaidul Haque, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Md Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Fatima Tuz Zafrin Tuli, Jerad L. Shaw, Alex Denevan, Shannon Franks, Kathryn Ruslander, Esad Micijevic, Michael J. Choate, Cody Anderson, Kurt Thome, Ed Kaita, Julia Barsi, Raviv Levy, Jeff Miller, Leibo Ding

The 50-year Landsat collection 2 archive

The Landsat global consolidated data archive now exceeds 50 years. In recognition of the need for consistently processed data across the Landsat satellite series, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) initiated collection-based processing of the entire archive that was processed as Collection 1 in 2016. In preparation for the data from the now successfully launched Landsat 9, the USGS reprocessed the
Authors
Christopher J. Crawford, David P. Roy, Saeed Arab, Christopher Barnes, Eric Vermote, Glynn Hulley, Aaron Gerace, Michael J. Choate, Christopher Engebretson, Esad Micijevic, Gail L. Schmidt, Cody Anderson, Martha Anderson, Michelle Bouchard, Bruce D. Cook, Ray Dittmeier, Danny Howard, Calli Jenkerson, Minsu Kim, Tania Kleyians, Tom Maiersperger, Chase Mueller, Christopher Neigh, Linda Owen, Benjamin Page, Nima Pahelvan, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Jean-Claude Roger, Kristi Sayler, Pat L Scaramuzza, Sergii Skakun, Lin Yan, Hankui K. Zhang, Zhe Zhu, Stephen G. Zahn

Developing satellite-estimated precipitation monthly reports for selected locations in the Republic of the Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (also known as the Marshall Islands) is a nation of more than 30 low-lying atolls and islands, most of which are inhabited, dispersed across an Exclusive Economic Zone over 770,000 square miles in the tropical central north Pacific Ocean. Monitoring environmental conditions for potential drought risk is challenging in such a dispersed island nation, and current
Authors
Gabriel B. Senay, David A. Helweg, Stefanie Kagone, John B. Taylor, Thomas Cecere, Tiare Eastmond, Amy Koch, Kurtis Nelson, Lajikit Rufus

Leveraging multimission satellite data for spatiotemporally coherent cyanoHAB monitoring

Cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) present a critical public health challenge for aquatic resource and public health managers. Satellite remote sensing is well-positioned to aid in the identification and mapping of cyanoHABs and their dynamics, giving freshwater resource managers a tool for both rapid and long-term protection of public health. Monitoring cyanoHABs in lakes and reservoi
Authors
Kate Colleen Fickas, Ryan O'Shea, Nima Pahlevan, Brandon Smith, Sarah Bartlett, Jennifer L. Wolny

Predicting exotic annual grass abundance in rangelands of the western United States using various precipitation scenarios

Expansion of exotic annual grass (EAG), such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) and medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae [L.] Nevski), could cause irreversible changes to arid and semiarid rangeland ecosystems in the western United States. The distribution and abundance of EAG species are highly affected by weather variables such as temperature and precipitation. The study's goal is to understan
Authors
Devendra Dahal, Stephen P. Boyte, Michael Oimoen