Seeing our planet anew: fifty years of Landsat

Authors: LOVELAND, T. - Us Geological Survey (USGS); Anderson, Martha; HUNTINGTON, J. - Desert Research Institute; IRONS, J. - Goddard Space Flight Center; JOHNSON, D. - National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS, USDA); ROCCHIO, L. - Goddard Space Flight Center; WOODCOCK, C. - Boston University; WULDER, M. - Canadian Forest Service

Submitted to: Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/6/2022
Publication Date: 7/1/2022
Citation: Loveland, T., Anderson, M.C., Huntington, J., Irons, J., Johnson, D., Rocchio, L., Woodcock, C., Wulder, M. 2022. Seeing our planet anew: fifty years of Landsat. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 88:7. https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.88.7.429.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.88.7.429

Interpretive Summary: The Landsat satellite program began in 1972, collecting a continuous Earth observation record at spatial resolutions (30-m) capturing the impacts of human activity on the land-surface. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first Landsat, this manuscript seeks to summarize major impacts that the program has had in the areas of studying land use and land cover change, agriculture, forestry, and water resources over the last half century. This recap is critical as we plan for the next stage of the continued Landsat imaging program.

Technical Abstract: The July 23, 1972 launch of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), later renamed Landsat 1, marks the first milepost of the Landsat journey. While the inception of the Landsat program began several years earlier (Goward et al., 2017), that first launch and the subsequent launches of eight more Landsat satellites define a timeline that leads us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of an ongoing satellite program with profound impacts on our observation and understanding of the Earth. Prior histories have addressed technical, programmatic, and scientific aspects of the Landsat program in a more-or-less chronological order (Goward et al., 2017; Mack, 1990). Here, we briefly address the cumulative impacts of the Landsat program on key Earth science and environmental topics. We attempt to address the “so what” questions. What do we know now about the Earth that we did not know 50 years ago due the Landsat data record? What are we able to do to protect, preserve, and wisely use our natural resources that we would not be able to do without Landsat data? The brevity of a feature article prevents comprehensive, exhaustive answers to these questions. Instead, we provide synopses of the impacts in four areas: land use and land cover change, agriculture, forestry and forest ecology, and water resources. Landsat data are employed for many other areas of research and application; we have chosen these four critical and representative topics to illustrate the value of the 50-year Landsat program.