Summary
Since 1972, the Landsat program has been continually monitoring the Earth, to now provide 50 years of digital, multispectral, medium spatial resolution observations. Over this time, Landsat data were crucial for many scientific and technical advances. Prior to the Landsat program, detailed, synoptic depictions of the Earth's surface were rare, and the ability to acquire and work with large datasets was limited. The early years of the Landsat program delivered a series of technological breakthroughs, pioneering new methods, and demonstrating the ability and capacity of digital satellite imagery, creating a template for other global Earth observation missions and programs. Innovations driven by the Landsat program have paved the way for subsequent science, application, and policy support act
Regional applicability
The findings are globally applicable, as Landsat has provided continuous worldwide coverage since 1972. The United Kingdom and European agricultural and environmental monitoring communities have benefited substantially from Landsat data, particularly for crop mapping, water availability assessment, and land-cover change detection relevant to UK farming policy and land management.
Key measures
Landsat multispectral imagery resolution; temporal coverage (1972–2022); data accessibility metrics; application areas (agricultural mapping, water use, climate, ecosystems, human footprint)
Outcomes reported
The paper reviews 50 years of Landsat satellite data applications and their scientific impacts across agricultural crop mapping, water use monitoring, climate change assessment, ecosystem monitoring, and human land-use change detection. It documents how free and open data access from 2008 onwards transformed Landsat usage from single-image analysis to large-area time-series studies.
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