An Introduction to Landsat Data Access and Processing in the Cloud

This video is a recording of a previous webinar entitled: “An Introduction to Landsat Data Access and Processing in the Cloud!.” This webinar was recorded on April 17, 2025.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center maintains one of the largest civilian collection of images of the Earth’s land surface. At EROS we study land change and produce land change data products used by researchers, resource managers, and policy makers across the nation and around the world. The EROS User Services team provides assistance and outreach to help users in the data community access and work with data distributed from EROS. As part of the outreach effort, the EROS User Services team provides the EROS User Experience webinar series, where we talk to staff at EROS to learn more about the data, tools, and services provided by the USGS EROS. This webinar was part of that series.

Since December 2020, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Collection 2 data archive has been available in an uncompressed Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Services (S3). Accessing Landsat data using this new access method allows users to retrieve and process specific areas of interest (AOIs) more efficiently without manually searching for data or downloading entire scenes. A cloud-based approach can eliminate time-consuming data transfers and storage, allowing users to focus on analysis and leveraging open-source tools. By working directly in a cloud environment, users can visualize and retrieve large-scale Landsat data in the cloud. This webinar will concentrate on accessing and processing Landsat products in the cloud. It aims to assist users in improving their existing workflows by utilizing common programming tools available in the commercial cloud environment. Information about Landsat data and how to access and work with the data in the cloud will be provided, including demonstrations of some of the newly created scripts from the EROS User Services code.usgs.gov/eros-user-services space.

Additional information and links related to this webinar:   

1. Landsat STAC Browser: https://landsatlook.usgs.gov/stac-browser/collection02  
2. USGS User Services Github: https://code.usgs.gov/eros-user-services
   1. Introduction to Landsat STAC Tutorial: https://code.usgs.gov/eros-user-services/accessing_landsat_data/introduction-to-landsat-stac
   2. Decoding and using the Landsat Pixel Quality Assessment Band for Masking Tutorial: https://code.usgs.gov/eros-user-services/processing_landsat_data/decoding-the-landsat-pixel-quality-assessment-band
   3. Retrieving Band Values for a Single Pixel Through Time: https://code.usgs.gov/eros-user-services/processing_landsat_data/retrieving-single-pixel-values-through-time
3. Additional Cloud Resources
   1. Pangeo https://www.pangeo.io/
   2. NASA EarthData Cloud Primer for Amazon Web Services   https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/webinars-and-tutorials/cloud-primer-amazon-web-services
   3. Alaska Satellite Facility OpenScienceLab: https://asf.alaska.edu/asf-services-open-science-lab/
   4. NASA Openscapes: https://openscapes.org/
   5. Cloud Native Geo: https://cloudnativegeo.org/
4. Landsat Commercial Cloud Data Access User Guide: https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-commercial-cloud-data-access 

Sign up for the Latest in Landsat Newsletter to receive future news about Landsat: https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/news/receive-latest-landsat-directly-your-inbox  

Join the EROS User Group and to sign up to be notified of future webinars in this series please visit: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/eros-user-group