National Land Imaging Program
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Our Nation’s economic security and environmental vitality rely on continuous monitoring of the Earth’s continents, islands, and coastal regions in order to record, study, and understand land change at local, regional, and global scales. The USGS National Land Imaging (NLI) Program helps meet this need.
Image of the Week
As fire season continues in the western United States, satellite images help us to look back at a number of incidents tracked by officials across California in August.
California FiresLandsat 9 Road to Launch
Launching in 2021, Landsat 9 is a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Learn about the process of building Landsat 9 and how it will extend Landsat's unbroken record of our planet to over half a century.
Road to LaunchMore to Explore
Follow these links to learn more about our remote sensing research partnerships, how to access and download data, our image collections, news articles, and more.
News
Landsat Science Team Member: Satellites Can Play Greater Role in Informing Global Policies
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that scientists and engineers are constantly pushing the envelope to improve remote-sensing data and their utility, says Matt Hansen, a Landsat Science Team (LST) member and professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland in College Park.
New Edition of JACIE Remote Sensing Compendium Released for 2020
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and its Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) partners have just released the second edition of the JACIE land remote sensing satellite compendium.
Fire Footprints stretch Across California, Colorado
The accumulated wildfires engulfing miles of California countryside in the late summer of 2020 are historic in their collective size: more than 500 fires burning across hundreds of thousands of acres.
Publications
2020 Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation—Remote sensing satellite compendium
The Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) is a collaboration between five Federal agencies that are major users and producers of satellite land remote sensing data. In recent years, the JACIE group has observed ever-increasing numbers of remote sensing satellites being launched. This rapidly growing wave of new systems creates a need...
Ramaseri Chandra, Shankar N.; Christopherson, Jon B.; Casey, Kimberly A.
Economic valuation of landsat imagery
Landsat satellites have been operating since 1972, providing a continuous global record of the Earth’s land surface. The imagery is currently available at no cost through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A previous USGS study estimated that Landsat imagery provided users an annual benefit of $2.19 billion in 2011, with U.S. users accounting for...
Straub, Crista L.; Koontz, Stephen R.; Loomis, John B.
User needs for future Landsat missions
Landsat satellites have been operating since 1972, providing the longest continuous observation record of the Earth’s land surface. Over the past half century, the Landsat user community has grown exponentially, encompassing more diverse and evolving scientific research and operational uses. Understanding current and future user needs is crucial...
Wu, Zhuoting; Snyder, Gregory; Vadnais, Carolyn M.; Arora, Rohit; Babcock, Michael; Stensaas, Gregory L.; Doucette, Peter; Newman, Timothy