Mission Areas
Land Resources
Understanding a changing world and how it affects our natural resources, livelihoods, and communities. Science plays an essential role in helping communities and resource managers understand the local to global implications of change, anticipate the effects of change, prepare for change, and reduce the risks associated with decisionmaking in a changing environment.
EROS Center
The Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center is responsible for satellite operations, including Landsat, and performs image data collection, archiving, processing, and distribution.
Explore EROSLandCarbon
The biologic carbon sequestration assessment program (LandCarbon) studies ecosystem carbon cycle research topics, investigates carbon management science needs, and develops monitoring methods.
Learn MoreData and Tools
Land Resources supports the science community with its long-term observational networks and extensive databases encompassing the fields of climate history, land-use and land-cover change, and carbon and nutrient cycles.
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit
News
New Land Cover Maps Depict 15 Years of Change across America
Today, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the latest edition of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the U.S. – the most comprehensive land cover database that the USGS has ever produced. The NLCD 2016 documents land cover change in the Lower 48 states from 2001 to 2016. During this 15-year period, 7.6 percent of the conterminous U.S. changed land cover at least once.
Pecora Award Honors Excellence in Earth Observation
Two awardees have been recognized with the 2018 William T. Pecora Award for achievements in Earth remote sensing.
Black Hills Perfect Laboratory for Multi-Sensor Fire Science Research
After the Legion Lake Fire at Custer State Park in South Dakota’s Black Hills erupted in December 2017— burning across private, state, and federal landscapes all at once—scientists at the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center discovered an important opportunity among the ashes.
Publications
Arctic vegetation, temperature, and hydrology during Early Eocene transient global warming events
Early Eocene global climate was warmer than much of the Cenozoic and was punctuated by a series of transient warming events or ‘hyperthermals’ associated with carbon isotope excursions when temperature increased by 4–8° C. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~55 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2, 53.5 Ma) hyperthermals were of short...
Willard, Debra A.; Donders, Timme H; Reichgelt, Tammo; Greenwood, David R; Peterse, Francien; Sangiorgi, Francesca; Sluijs, Appy; Schouten, Stefan It’s about time: A synthesis of changing phenology in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem
The timing of recurring biological and seasonal environmental events is changing on a global scale relative to temperature and other climate drivers. This study considers the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, a region of high social and ecological importance in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and synthesizes current knowledge of 1) key seasonal processes,...
Staudinger, Michelle; Mills, Katherine E.; Stamieszkin, Karen; Record, Nicholas R.; Hudak, Christine A.; Allyn, Andrew; Diamond, Antony; Friedland, Kevin; Golet, Walt; Henderson, Elisabeth; Hernandez, Christina M.; Huntington, Thomas G.; Ji, Rubao; Johnson, Catherine L.; Johnson, David Samuel; Jordaan, Adrian; Kocik, John; Li, Yun; Liebman, Matthew; Nichols, Owen C.; Pendleton, Daniel; Richards, R. Anne; Robben, Thomas; Thomas, Andrew C.; Walsh, Harvey J.; Yakola, Keenan Implementation of an occupancy-based monitoring protocol for a wide-spread and cryptic species, the New England cottontail Sylvilagus transitionalis
Designing effective long-term monitoring strategies is essential for managing wildlife populations. Implementing a cost-effective, practical monitoring program is especially challenging for widespread but locally rare species. Early successional habitat preferred by the New England cottontail (NEC) has become increasingly rare and fragmented,...
Shea, Colin P.; Eaton, Mitchell; MacKenzie, Darryl I.