Forest Health and Changes

With 89 percent of its territory classified as forest, Maine is the most forested State in the Nation. The forest industry is a driving force in the State’s economy and has an annual economic impact of $8.5 billion. Landsat time-series imagery provides a valuable asset to the forestry industry. When used with county-level Forest Inventory and Analysis estimates, Landsat data enable decision makers to gather a variety of information: analyze forest distribution; identify forest cover loss through harvests, fire, disease, or other disturbance; and identify forest gain through regeneration (Sader and others, 2005).

Fishing and Farms

Researchers from the University of Maine have demonstrated that Landsat 8 data are useful in aquaculture site selection. Each summer, the State closes areas of coastline to shellfish harvesting because of harmful algal blooms. Analyzing validated Landsat temperature and water-quality fields enables the siting of promising oyster aquaculture areas out of harm’s way (Snyder and others, 2017). Landsat surface reflectance data can also help to differentiate between nutrient deficiencies and insect/weed problems in farm fields. Site-specific farming using Landsat can increase income and resolve environmental issues, thus easing agricultural management decisions (Leslie and others, 2017).

Coastlines and Wetlands

Rising sea levels erode Maine’s wetlands and beaches and increase damage from coastal storms. Geographers and remote-sensing scientists use Landsat to help map shorelines and inform decision makers on several areas: where human activities, such as filling tidal wetlands, not only affect habitat for bird and fish species but also remove an important line of defense against coastal flooding; where storm surges are becoming higher, eroding shorelines, and making coastal cities more vulnerable to storms; and where community infrastructure, such as highways, rail lines, wastewater treatment plants, and more, are threatened by sea-level rise and future storm surges (Pearsall, 2021).

Landsat—Critical Information Infrastructure for the Nation

Landsat is the most widely used land remote sensing data source within Federal civilian agencies. Local, State, Tribal, and Federal agencies use Landsat to monitor and forecast a wide range of land surface phenomena. Information from Landsat contributes to day-to-day decisions on land, water, and resource use that protect life and property; safeguard the environment; advance science, technology, and education; support climate change resiliency; and grow the U.S. economy. Landsat’s imagery provides a landscape-level view of land surface, inland lake, and coastal processes, both natural and human-induced. Landsat enables us to better understand the scope, nature, and speed of change to the natural and built environment.

Businesses draw upon Landsat data to provide customer-specific applications to improve logistics, resource allocation, and investment decisions. Commercial space imaging firms leverage Landsat data to refine product offerings and support new information services. A 2017 USGS study determined the total annual economic benefit of Landsat data in the United States. to be $2.06 billion, far surpassing its development and operating costs (Straub and others, 2019).

Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 provide 8-day repeat coverage of the Earth’s land surfaces. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the USGS are currently reviewing the findings from a joint Architecture Study Team, which will inform the design and implementation approach for Landsat Next, the follow-on mission to Landsat 9. Landsat 9 and its successors are planned to provide a sustainable, space-based system to extend the 50-year Landsat series of high-quality global land imaging measurements—the world’s longest time series of the Earth’s land surface.

The long-term availability of consistent and accurate Landsat data, combined with a no-cost data policy, allows users to analyze extensive geographic areas and better understand and manage long-term trends in land surface change. New cloud computing and data analytics technologies use Landsat data in a wide range of decision-support tools for Government and industry. Much like global positioning systems and weather data, Landsat data are used every day to help us better understand our dynamic planet.