Videos

Landsat satellites capture images of the Earth’s surface. While the sensors aboard Landsat capture a wide range of scientifically useful wavelengths, this collection reveals natural color imagery in the red, green and blue parts of the visible spectrum, as if viewed by the naked eye from 438 miles above the surface.

The 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP) database will initially be populated with the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) features, mapped to the new data model. The NHD-source features will be replaced with hydrography derived from the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) lidar and IfSAR data as it becomes available.

A large, round lake in Quebec, Canada, highlights the geography of an ancient impact crater.

In the late Triassic Period, a 3 mile wide meteorite struck northern Pangea at over 30,000 miles per hour.

The resulting crater is now 214 million years old, but the dramatic circular lake visible in 2024 Landsat imagery is a surprisingly recent feature.

Federal Fiscal Year 2024 was the first full operational year for the 3D Hydrography Program. We made significant progress in a number of areas, publishing final versions of legacy products, and developing processes for the new program. This presentation will provide an overview of what was accomplished in FY24 and what is planned for FY25. 

This video is a recording of a previous webinar entitled: “The New Annual (1985-2023) National Land Cover Database: Improving on a 30-year Legacy.” This webinar was recorded on October 24, 2024 at the USGS EROS.

The Klamath River, flowing from the high desert interior of Oregon and through the redwood forests of California, once produced large runs of salmon and trout. However, the construction of hydroelectric dams, beginning in 1918, blocked fish migration, encroached on Indigenous culture, and impacted water quality.

The USGS-NFHP Webinar on the 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP) and The National Map (TNM) provided a deep dive into the current state and future direction of USGS hydrography and elevation data, focusing on the replacement of legacy datasets with highly accurate, 3D-enabled data.

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 policymakers across the nation and around the world.

This National Map training video is an introduction to using the LidarExplorer application to easily access lidar data and derived products. In LidarExplorer, you can search for lidar projects, digital elevation models, and lidar point cloud files to meet your needs.

The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst), in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), began a series of studies in 2019 to develop a web-based statewide hydraulic modeling tool to provide preliminary culvert designs for stream-crossing projects in Massachusetts.

Prolonged drought has lowered water levels in Laguna Bustillos in Chihuahua State, Mexico, killing thousands of fish.

Rangeland managers need information on the current vegetation condition and how the landscape has changed through time.

The U.S.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) took an interest in uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) technologies in the early 2000s, when UAS were predominantly being used for military applications.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire started about 1 mile north of Stinnett, Texas on February 26th, 2024. Three days later, the fire had consumed over 1 million acres. With a total area of 1,654 square miles, it became the largest fire on record in Texas. That's larger than New York's Long Island.

The new 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP) is the focus of USGS efforts to acquire and produce detailed surface-water mapping information, such as lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

In support of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center research, the USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO) conducted uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) remote sensing flights near Moab, Utah in May 2023 for multi-scale carbon sequestration research on public lands.  

The NUSO and the National Park Service (NPS) Heritage Document Programs partnered in May 2024 to perform a UAS-based 3D scan of Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial. 

This is a recording of a previous webinar entitled: “EMIT: Imaging Spectroscopy, Surface Mineralogy, and Greenhouse Gas Products and Resources Available from the LP DAAC”. This webinar was recorded on May 30, 2024.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) is a national hydrologic unit (HU) geospatial dataset that defines surface drainage areas for the United States. This dataset provides a foundation for local, regional, and national applications to manage, archive, exchange, and analyze data by HU.

Like many lakes in northern Minnesota, Mille Lacs near Brainerd experienced an uncommonly warm winter this year, with lower than average snowfall. Natural color Landsat images from the past ten Februarys reveal a stark change in 2024.