"LANDSAT AT 30 - REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE"

Landsat-1 (then named the Earth Resources Technology Satellite-ERTS-1) began an era of space-based resource data collection that changed the way science, industry, governments, and the general public view the Earth.  For the last 30 years the Landsat program - despite being hampered by institutional problems and budget uncertainties - has successfully provided a continuous supply of synoptic, repetitive multispectral data of the Earth's land areas.  Landsat data can support a range of important global change issues, and provide important geographical information for sustainable development.  For example, the rate of forest loss worldwide from deforestation, logging, fragmentation, and fire has been hard to measure, but with the aid of large area analyses using massive numbers of Landsat scenes, it is now possible to make better estimates.  The societal applications this program has generated are so compelling that international systems (at least 10 separate countries at last count have launched approximately 30 Landsat-like systems since 1972) have proliferated to carry on the tasks initiated with Landsat data.

This unique colloquium presentation will be shared among the three presenters listed, and will include a review of past, present and future ramifications of this historical Earth observation program. The international systems that have "spun-off" from Landsat will be discussed, and some of the progress in using Landsat for making land cover change measurements will be reviewed with an emphasis on the new controversy surrounding measurements in Amazonia related to logging. Efforts to make widespread dissemination and use of Landsat 7 data easier and less costly through a new project from the Tropical Rain Forest Information Center, called www.landsat.org will be presented, along with a status update on plans to maintain continuity of this important data set into the future.
 

Return to Schedule