USGS National Civil Applications Center: Intelligence Imagery for Civilian Science

Lava flows from Kīlauea Volcano, Island of Hawaiʻi, as of June 3, 2018 — one of many maps compiled by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory to help officials protect the public. USGS map.

What the center does

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Civil Applications Center (NCAC) analyzes remote-sensing data from the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense to support public safety and to study changes on the land and in the environment.

• The data: images from intelligence and military sensors — the U.S. National Imagery Systems — and unclassified commercial satellite data bought by the Defense Department, often called geospatial intelligence: in federal law, "the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on or about the earth."
• The users: USGS scientists and other civilian federal agencies.
• The committee: the center staffs the secretariat of, and manages, the interagency Civil Applications Committee, which oversees appropriate civilian use of imagery from military, intelligence and commercial sources.
• Where: funded by the USGS National Land Imaging Program, it has facilities in Reston, Virginia, and Lakewood, Colorado.

Science it supports

The center and its predecessors have supplied data for detecting, assessing and mitigating volcanoes, earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, floods and hurricanes, and for environmental monitoring, resource management and mapping.

• Volcanoes: with the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, center scientists monitor more than 150 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, about 50 of them a high or very high threat — international work done with the U.S. Agency for International Development through the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program. During the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, their satellite image interpretations fed the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's updates and maps for local officials.
• Wildfires: for the National Interagency Fire Center and the Interior Department's Office of Wildland Fire, the center works with the USDA Forest Service and the Defense Department to detect and respond to large wildfires — and, when other sources aren't available, interprets imagery and compiles maps for incident commanders.

Lava channels on Kīlauea's lower East Rift Zone, seen from a helicopter on May 19, 2018. Photograph from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Night operations on the Pine Gulch fire in Colorado. Photograph by Kyle Miller, Wyoming Hotshots, USDA Forest Service.

The Noisy Creek wildfires near Sullivan Lake, Washington, in 2017 — an example of the maps the center compiles in emergencies for incident commanders. USGS map.

The Global Fiducials Library

Sponsored by the Civil Applications Committee and run by the center, the Global Fiducials Library keeps a systematic record of the Earth's environmentally critical areas. A fiducial site is a precisely located area chosen by civilian federal agencies for long-term study of changing Earth processes.

• Scale: more than 500 sites analyzed, many with national imagery collected since the mid-1990s, on five topics — ocean processes, ice and snow, the atmosphere, land use and land cover, and geology.
• Openness: data from more than 150 sites are public, and the center is working to release all 500.
• Fire Island: on October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy cut three breaches in Fire Island, off Long Island, New York, including a new inlet joining the Atlantic to Bellport Bay. The inlet — relatively stable but still changing — is monitored by the National Park Service, and its images are kept in the library.
• A vanished island: in a study of six decades of change, center scientists combined library imagery with Landsat, Sentinel and aerial photos of East Timbalier Island, Louisiana, which finally eroded away by early summer 2021.
• Other uses: Arctic sea ice, infectious diseases, surface-water extent, forest dynamics, glacial lakes and landslides.

Fire Island National Seashore, New York, in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017, showing shoreline change after Hurricane Sandy. USGS images.

Imagery for civilian agencies

The center is the main provider of Defense Department remote-sensing data to civilian federal agencies, including, since 2010, commercial satellite images the department buys. Presidential directives require agencies using this imagery to follow all laws on personal privacy, civil liberties and individual rights — both in how the images are analyzed and in why they are requested.

• Agencies request new and archived images through the CIDR site; the center delivers commercial data through EarthExplorer.
• Through the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, it works with the USGS EROS Center to supply commercial imagery for disaster response worldwide.
• Approval processes allow reports, maps and images derived from intelligence and defense imagery to be released publicly.

Examples: mapping landslides from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (2017); helping safely evacuate a research camp on an ice floe (2021); looking for new southern pine beetle activity in Mississippi (2021); monitoring endangered beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet (2020–2021); and, since 2020, classifying salt marsh vegetation in the Northeast for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

How it began

In the 1960s, the USGS began using classified imagery from military reconnaissance aircraft and satellites to update topographic maps and for science.

• Corona: the first U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite, launched in 1960, with a best resolution of 6 feet — enough to update the USGS's 1:250,000-scale maps.
• The Special Mapping Office: opened in 1969 in Reston, Virginia, to work with classified imagery, hosting staff from civilian agencies such as the Forest Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. The center is its successor.
• Hexagon: satellites operating from 1971 to 1986, with 2–3-foot resolution — detailed enough to revise 1:24,000-scale maps directly.
• Aircraft: photos from U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance planes served disaster response and science.
• Declassified: most Corona, Hexagon, Gambit, Argon and Lanyard imagery is now public on EarthExplorer.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford formalized civilian agencies' use of classified satellite imagery and had the Interior Secretary set up the Civil Applications Committee, which the USGS Director chairs today. Its principal members are thirteen civilian federal agencies, from the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to NASA and the Tennessee Valley Authority; seven Intelligence Community agencies are associate members, and three oversight bodies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, serve ex officio.

Sources

Based on Paul M. Young, "National Civil Applications Center," Fact Sheet 2022–3085, U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The figures are restored from the fact sheet's PDF.