Users, Uses, and Value of Landsat Imagery
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The USGS Land Remote Sensing Program has established a long-term study to better understand the users, uses, and value of Landsat satellite imagery. The current Landsat satellites provide high-quality, multi-spectral, moderate-resolution imagery of all areas of the world. This imagery is applied in a variety of applications, such as global climate change, environmental management, and planning and development. Landsat imagery is unique among current satellite imagery due to an archive of free global imagery collected continuously since 1972. More than 20 million Landsat scenes have been downloaded, the vast majority since a no-cost data policy was put into place in 2008. The Fort Collins Science Center’s Social and Economic Analysis Branch (SEA) is conducting research to (1) identify and classify the users of Landsat imagery, (2) gain a better understanding of how and why the imagery is being used, and (3) measure the value of the imagery qualitatively and quantitatively. Key components of this study are multiple surveys conducted with thousands of Landsat users in the United States and internationally and in-depth case studies focused on the use of Landsat imagery in specific applications, such as water resources, agriculture, and the tech sector. This ScienceBase community has been established to provide access to additional information and data which has not been made available through Open-File Reports. For more information on this study and for links to the full survey reports, as well as case studies, please visit https://www.usgs.gov/centers/fort/science/users-uses-and-value-landsat-imagery-0?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects