Publications

Starting with launch of Landsat 7 (L7) on 15 April 1999, the USGS Landsat Image Assessment System (IAS) has been performing calibration and characterization operations for over 20 years on the Landsat spacecrafts and their associated payloads. With the launch of Landsat 9 (L9) on 27 September 2021, that spacecraft and its payloads, the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) and Thermal...

Having highly accurate and reliable Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of the Earth’s surface is critical to orthorectify Landsat imagery. Without such accuracy, pixel locations reported in the data are difficult to assure as accurate, especially in more mountainous landscapes, where the orthorectification process is the most challenging. To this end, the Landsat Calibration and Validation...

Remotely sensed surface temperature (ST) has been widely used to monitor and assess landscape thermal conditions, hydrologic modeling, and surface energy balance. Landsat thermal sensors have continuously measured the Earth surface thermal radiance since August 1982. The thermal radiance measurements are atmospherically compensated and converted to Landsat STs and delivered as part of...

The Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area science product indicates the percentage of pixels covered by snow for Landsat 4–9 imagery. Landsat’s spatial resolution offers the capability to map snow cover patterns across topographically complex mountainous regions. Snow cover is spatially and temporally variable and is often concentrated in remote or inaccessible land...

Accurate and complete data on fire locations and burned areas are needed to quantify trends and patterns of fire occurrence, characterize drivers of fire, project future fire pattern behavior, and help with assessments of fire effects on natural and social systems. The Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Burned Area science product is designed to identify burned areas across all ecosystems (for...

The Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Dynamic Surface Water Extent science product provides raster data that represent surface water inundation per pixel in Landsat 4–9 imagery. The Collection 2 Dynamic Surface Water Extent science product contains six acquisition-based raster products relating to surface water. Surface water extent is modulated by weather and climate, stream network...

During the early post-launch phase of the Landsat 9 mission, the Landsat 8 and 9 mission teams conducted a successful under-fly of Landsat 8 by Landsat 9, allowing for the near-simultaneous data collection of common Earth targets by the on-board sensors for cross-calibration. This effort, coordinated by the Landsat Calibration and Validation team, required contributions from various...

The Landsat program has a long history of providing remotely sensed data to the user community. This history is being extended with the addition of the Landsat 9 satellite, which closely mimics the Landsat 8 satellite and its instruments. These satellites contain two instruments, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). OLI is a push-broom sensor that...

Alabama’s warm climate and rich soil bolster its agriculture and timber industries, but they also offer ideal conditions for natural playgrounds, enjoyed by humans and the wildlife that call the open green spaces home. Alabama has 21 State parks and 11 national parks, monuments, and trails across its diverse geography. Cotton is no longer king in the Cotton State, but it remains a part...