|
|
More than 715,000 visitors have transcribed their names and messages into Landsat letters using the “Your Name in Landsat” tool since it was unveiled in August as part of Camp Landsat 2024. Enthusiasm for the tool spread quickly as it captivated folks on social media and was featured in Hackaday and Forbes. A new Q&A reveals how the popular Landsat letter tool came to be. | | |
|
|
November 26, 2024
Cities in the Global South Lack Green Space
As any urban dweller who has lived through a heat wave knows, a shady tree can make all the difference. But what happens when there’s no shade? A recent study used Landsat data to find that cities in the Global South have far less green space than cities in the Global North.
| | |
|
|
November 4, 2024
Source: Lindsey Doermann, NASA’s Earth Observatory
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have developed a new way to measure ocean depth, or bathymetry, in shallow nearshore environments using Landsat data. This up-to-date information is critical for modeling water movement, tracking coastal changes, studying coral reef habitats, and more.
| |
The Landsat Communications and Public Engagement Team will be at the following event in December 2024: | | |
|
|
December 9-13, 2024
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Washington, DC
The Landsat team will be at the NASA booth on
12/10 from 12pm-4pm
12/12 from 10am-1pm
Landsat 8 and 9 Project Scientist Chris Neigh will present about Landsat's Emerging Applications at
Poster Session: 12/9 from 8:30am-12:20pm
Oral Session: 12/9 from 4pm-5:30pm
| |
|
PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT
| Williams et al., 2024
In the face of decades of intense deforestation, forest restoration is a critical strategy for conservationists safeguarding biodiversity, storing carbon, and sustaining nearby communities. However, planting trees is costly, time-intensive, and often results in less biodiverse forests than natural regeneration. Researchers in Williams et al., 2024 used a Landsat-derived tree cover database and a range of biological and socioeconomic factors—ranging from land cover to climate data to road density—to build a model of where natural tropical forest regeneration occurred from 2000 to 2016. The model accuracy for classifying regrowth patches as plantation, open, or natural regrowth was 90.6%. Then, they modeled future natural regeneration across tropical forests, finding that 215 million hectares (over 530 million acres) have the potential for natural forest regeneration. If reforested, that land—larger than the entire country of Mexico—could sequester around 23.4 gigatons of carbon over the next 30 years. Over half of that land is in five countries: Brazil, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Colombia.
| The potential for natural forest regeneration in the global tropics and subtropics. Dark brown represents areas of high potential for natural regeneration, yellow represents areas of low potential for natural regeneration, and green represents current tree cover. Image credit:Williams et al., 2024 | | |
November 18, 2024
Signs of Sea Level Rise in the Bahamas
Rising seas have redistributed cyanobacterial mats blanketing part of Andros Island and restructured the island’s marshes and mudflats.
| |
| | | |
