Publications

Across our Nation, multiple Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments are working with stakeholders and landowners to restore, conserve, and manage lands and resources to benefit fish, wildlife, and people. One of the largest Federal efforts is led by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), with multiple DOI agencies working to conserve and manage public lands, resources, and...

Few States derive as much of their social and economic well-being from the land as South Dakota. Agriculture is the State’s primary industry. Hunting, fishing, tourism, mining, and hydroelectric power are also important economic and cultural drivers. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey Landsat program, archived at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center...

California has remarkable geographic diversity, from 1,100 miles of Pacific shoreline to 33 million acres of trees, including its famous redwood forests along the Pacific Coast Highway, U.S. Route 101. And although California’s nickname is “The Golden State," it may also deserve the title of “The Extreme State.” Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the conterminous United States, stands at...

Landsat surface temperature and land cover products have been used to estimate surface temperatures in urban and surrounding nonurban areas and to quantify urban heat island intensity. Understanding the intensity and long-term temporal trends of urban heat islands enables the heat-related health challenges associated with heat waves to be monitored and the effects for human health and...

This U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report provides information from assessments of Earth observation sensors completed by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports are provided as independent measures of basic system performance by the Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence team by...

Executive Summary This report addresses system characterization of the Maxar WorldView-3 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 in 2020. These reports present and detail the methodology and procedures for characterization; present...

Executive Summary This report addresses system characterization of Gaofen-1 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 in 2020. These reports present the detail methodology and procedures for characterization; present technical and operational...

Executive Summary This report addresses system characterization of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) 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 the methodology and procedures for...

Land system change has been identified as one of four major Earth system processes where change has passed a destabilizing threshold. A historical record of landscape change is required to understand the impacts change has had on human and natural systems, while scenarios of future landscape change are required to facilitate planning and mitigation efforts. A methodology for modeling...

Ongoing climate change and human conversion of forests to other land uses alter regional evapotranspiration dynamics and, consequently, impact associated hydrological systems in Amazonia. We studied the effects of drought and fragmentation on forest evapotranspiration using the surface energy balance-based model METRIC (Mapping Evapotranspiration at high Resolution with Internalized...

Exotic annual grasses (EAG) are one of the most damaging agents of change in western North America. Despite known socio-environmental effects of EAG there remains a need to enhance monitoring capabilities for better informing conservation and management practices. Here, we integrate field observations, remote sensing and climate data with machine-learning techniques to estimate and...

Land cover change plays a critical role in influencing hydrological responses. Change in land cover has impacted runoff across basins with substantial human interference; however, the impacts in basins with minimal human interference have been studied less. In this study, we investigated the impacts of directional land cover changes (forest to/from combined grassland and shrubland) in...