Visualizations by
Kel Elkins
Released on March 3, 2020
Satellite data offers a broad, global view of land surface changes, but cloud cover interferes with collecting data. Landsat satellites provide observations every 16 days, and having two satellites reduces that to every 8 days. The European Space Agency Sentinel-2 satellites collect data in similar wavelengths and at a similar spatial resolution, enabling the data to be combined for even more observations. When harmonized into one data set, the result is global observations every two or three days at 30-meter resolution.
Any application looking at very dynamic phenomena, where changes occur on the timescales of a few days or weeks, will benefit from the harmonized Landsat/Sentinel dataset. For example, crop condition and area, burned area, or surface water extent. Also, this will benefit any application where short-term environmental conditions (like drought) have a rapid impact on ecosystems.