Florida burns on purpose: its forest service permits prescribed fire on more than two million acres a year, to clear fuel and keep the fire-dependent landscapes its native plants and animals need. Knowing where and when land last burned makes that work safer and better — and Landsat satellites, which have photographed the state every few days for decades, can tell. They also track what hurricanes do to the Everglades' mangroves and how Miami Beach's shoreline and trees recover.
A statewide fire map
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Tall Timbers research station used the Landsat Burned Area product, with other records, to map the history and outline of fires across Florida from 2006 to 2018 — big and small, on every kind of ownership. Public and private land managers use that record to plan fuel treatments and the next prescribed burns.
Mangroves and hurricanes
University and federal researchers have used Landsat's archive to study hurricane damage to mangroves in Everglades National Park: how much each storm destroyed, and how long an area took to recover — or turn to open water. One study found that from 1985 to 2017 mangroves along the outer coast declined, but gains along the inner coastline more than made up for it. Every hurricane did damage; how much depended on its winds.
Mangroves along Florida Bay. USGS.
Miami Beach
Researchers in NASA's DEVELOP programme used several Landsat satellites to help the Miami Beach Public Works Department adapt to climate change around Biscayne Bay. They measured tree loss and recovery and coastal damage after Hurricane Irma, tracked urban greenery over time, assessed mangroves in protected areas, and built a tool for following the bay's water quality over the years.
Miami Beach and northern Biscayne Bay from Landsat, January 5, 2021.
Landsat in brief
| Record | since 1972, the longest continuous record of Earth's land surface |
| In orbit | Landsat 8 and 9, together covering the land every 8 days |
| Cost to users | nothing; distributed worldwide by the USGS EROS Center |
| Value | $2.06 billion a year to the United States, by a 2017 USGS study |
| Next | Landsat Next, being designed by NASA and the USGS |
It is the most widely used land-imaging source in federal civilian agencies, and state, local and Tribal governments and businesses rely on it daily.
Sources
Written from Florida and Landsat, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2022–3019, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from pubs.usgs.gov
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