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Core Science Systems Mission Area

CSS leads USGS’s mission as the civilian mapping agency for the Nation. We conduct detailed surveys and develop high quality, highly accurate topographic, geologic, hydrographic, and biogeographic maps and data. Our maps allow precise planning for critical mineral assessments; energy development; infrastructure projects; urban planning; flood prediction; emergency response; and haz

News

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New Landsat 9 Cloud Cover Assessment Validation Dataset Published

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Landsat Supporting Greater International Water Security

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Landsat Level-1 Product Processing Resumes

Publications

A guide to creating an effective big data management framework

Many agencies and organizations, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, handle massive geospatial datasets and their auxiliary data and are thus faced with challenges in storing data and ingesting it, transferring it between internal programs, and egressing it to external entities. As a result, these agencies and organizations may inadvertently devote unnecessary time and money to convey data without
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Samantha Arundel, Kevin G McKeehan, Bryan B Campbell, Andrew N. Bulen, Philip T. Thiem

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
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Gabriel B. Senay, David A. Helweg, Stefanie Kagone, John B. Taylor, Thomas Cecere, Tiare Eastmond, Amy Koch, Kurtis Nelson, Lajikit Rufus

Calibration and validation for the Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission concept: Recommendations for a multi-sensor system for imaging spectroscopy and thermal imagery

The primary objective of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission is to measure biological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical features of the Earth's surface, realizing a key conceptual component of the envisioned NASA Earth System Observatory (ESO). SBG is planned to launch as a two-platform mission in the late 2020s, the first of the
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Kevin R. Turpie, Kimberly Ann Casey, Christopher J. Crawford, Liane S Guild, Hugh H. Kieffer, Guoqing (Gary) Lin, Raymond F. Kokaly, Alok Shrestha, Cody Anderson, Shankar N. Ramaseri Chandra, Robert O. Green, Simon Hook, Constantine Lukashin, Kurt Thome

Science

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Eyes on Earth Episode 108 – Landsat 8’s 100th Drag Make-Up Maneuver

The USGS EROS Landsat Flight Operations Team recently completed the 100th Drag Make-Up maneuver for Landsat 8.
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Eyes on Earth Episode 107 – EROS 50th: Land Cover, Part 2

The next step for two strong land cover products at USGS EROS is to combine them to create something even better.
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Eyes on Earth Episode 106 – EROS 50th: Land Cover, Part 1

USGS EROS contributed to a better understanding of the Earth’s surface by leading early land cover mapping efforts.
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