Multispectral Satellite Missions for Land-Cover and Land-Use Monitoring: An Overview

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Since the first satellite of Landsat series was launched over 50 years ago land-change science has been rapidly developing to answer the questions on where changes are occurring, what is their extent and over what time scale, what are their causes, their consequences for ecosystems and human societies, their feedback with climate change, and what changes are expected in the future. Much effort has been invested in developing multi-sensor, multi-spectral methods to increase the spatiotemporal coverage and to advance the virtual constellation paradigm for moderate spatial resolution (10-60m) land imaging systems. The use of commercial satellite very high (meter) resolution is accelerating with more data becoming available. The NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program is developing interdisciplinary approaches combining aspects of physical, social, and economic sciences, with a high level of societal relevance, using remote sensing tools, methods, and data. The Program aims at developing the capability for annual satellite-based inventories to monitor changes at the Earth’s surface to improve our understanding of LCLUC as an essential component of the Earth System. This lecture will provide an overview of the available sources of information from space obtained from various satellite missions including those which are planned for the very near future. It will describe the synergistic use of multi-source land imaging data including those from the instruments on the International Space Station, and using examples from forests, agriculture, and urban sectors.

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Dr. Garik Gutman

LCLUC Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

Overview of multispectral satellite missions for land cover and land use monitoring, including applications in urban, forest, and agricultural sectors.

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31.01.2025

4:00 PM (GMT +2)