Monitoring Forest Health

Landsat is useful for monitoring forest health. Researchers can use the program’s long record of repeat observations to track trends over time, as scientists did in 2013 to evaluate the effect of forest disturbances to carbon storage in the forests of Mississippi and Alabama (Chen and others, 2013). Long-term trends in forest disturbance and tree canopy extent also are captured by Landsat-based map layers produced by the interagency Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools program; the National Land Cover Database; and the USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection initiative.

Cataloging Crop Health, Crop Types

Agriculture is one of Mississippi’s top industries, along with forestry. The 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture put livestock and crop sales in the State at $6.2 billion, and poultry led the statewide commodities list (Dickson, 2021). With so much of Mississippi’s economy focused on agricultural production, Landsat’s value in the arena of wide-scale crop monitoring is particularly beneficial. Landsat data are a key input to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cropland Data Layer, which tracks annual U.S. crop types at a 30-meter spatial resolution and offers an observation-based data source to supplement producer-reported planting. Landsat data are useful to agriculture in ways beyond crop cataloging, however. The ability of Landsat sensors to peer beyond visible light and into the infrared and near-infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum allow researchers to assess crop health by calculating field-scale Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Enhanced Vegetation Index values, both of which serve as a proxy for plant greenness. Such information can serve as the basis for crop yield estimates across Mississippi, which can help guide decisions on fertilizer application, irrigation, and weed control (Wang and others, 2019).

Tracking Damage from Extreme Weather

Tornadoes represent a serious danger to life, property, cropland, and natural resources in Mississippi; however, extreme weather events also originate over water. The State’s Gulf Coast faces a steady stream of threats from hurricanes. Landsat imagery is a powerful tool for tracking wide-scale damage from tornadoes and hurricanes, such as coastal erosion and inland flooding. Emergency managers use Landsat data from the USGS Hazards Data Distribution System for rapid mapping and damage assessments during and just after natural and human-made disasters. Beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Hazards Data Distribution System has responded to dozens of hurricanes that threatened or damaged the State.

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.