Oregon From Orbit: Landsat in the Willamette Valley, the Klamath Basin and the Forests

Oregon packs a great deal into one state: Cascade peaks above 10,000 feet, Crater Lake — at 1,943 feet the deepest lake in the United States — forests, farmland, grassland, coast, rivers, semidesert and mountain ranges. More than 4 million people share it with a wide range of wildlife, including 16 federally endangered species, and much of its economy — farming, timber, fishing — depends on the same land. Landsat, the USGS satellite series, is one of the tools state and federal agencies use to manage that balance, all the more as a warming climate brings more drought, insect outbreaks and wildfire (Jay and others, 2018).

The Willamette Valley

The fertile Willamette Valley holds much of Oregon's population and production, from vineyards to mint and Christmas trees. Landsat's long archive lets agencies watch it change:

• Oregon State University and U.S. Forest Service researchers used 40 years of Landsat images to map where, when and how the valley's wetlands changed (Fickas and others, 2016).
• OSU and USDA researchers traced 13 years of crop changes across the valley (Strimbu and others, 2021).
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses Landsat-derived data to locate priority habitats for sensitive wildlife and plants (2017).

The Willamette Valley. George Gentry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Water in the Upper Klamath Basin

Water in the Upper Klamath Basin is contested and precious. Farmers irrigate grains, potatoes, onions, hay and pasture; Oregon's tribes need enough water in the rivers for fishing and cultural traditions; fish need it to survive. To share a limited supply, especially in drought, the Bureau of Reclamation needs to know how much water irrigation actually uses. USGS scientists built it a tool on Landsat that measures evapotranspiration — the water that evaporates and passes through plants into the air — field by field.

The forests

The Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service use Landsat to follow the effects of wildfire, invasive insects, timber harvest and urban growth. The archive has produced maps of how forest vegetation and habitats for species of concern have changed, and estimates of how much carbon the forests can store. Oregon has 11 national forests and 6 state forests.

The Siuslaw National Forest on the Oregon coast. Steven Sobieszczyk, USGS

Landsat for everyone

The USGS National Land Imaging Program delivers Landsat free, worldwide, through the EROS Center. It is the most widely used land-imaging source among federal civilian agencies and underpins work by local, state and tribal governments and businesses alike; a USGS study put its annual benefit to the United States at $2.06 billion, far above its cost (Straub and others, 2019). Landsat 8 and 9 image the whole land surface every 8 days.

Sources

Written from Oregon and Landsat, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet; a work of the United States government in the public domain. It cites Jay and others (2018), Fickas and others (2016), Strimbu and others (2021), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2017) and Straub and others (2019).