Making big technology Serve the user: U.S. remote sensing programs

Mack, Pamela E.

doi:10.1080/07341519208581819

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the 1970s, NASA had trouble attracting some interest groups to Landsat information, partly because of the project's status as experimental, not operational, which placed in question the long-term utility of its data set (Mack, 1992). By 1979, Landsat was officially on its way to becoming an operational program, as asserted in Jimmy Carter's Presidential Decision 54, which also stipulated a long-term goal of Landsat's eventual private-sector operation (Mack and Williamson, 1998).…”

Section: Landsat Origins Development and Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Landsat Satellite Monitoring on Conservation Biology

Leimgruber

Christen

Laborderie

2005

Environ Monit Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Landsat 7's recent malfunctioning will result in significant gaps in long-term satellite monitoring of Earth, affecting not only the research of the Earth science community but also conservation users of these data. To determine whether or how important Landsat monitoring is for conservation and natural resource management, we reviewed the Landsat program's history with special emphasis on the development of user groups. We also conducted a bibliographic search to determine the extent to which conservation research has been based on Landsat data. Conservation biologists were not an early user group of Landsat data because a) biologists lacked technical capacity -computers and software -to analyze these data; b) Landsat's 1980s commercialization rendered images too costly for biologists' budgets; and c) the broad-scale disciplines of conservation biology and landscape ecology did not develop until the mid-to-late 1980s. All these conditions had changed by the 1990s and Landsat imagery became an important tool for conservation biology. Satellite monitoring and Landsat continuity are mandated by the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. This legislation leaves open commercial options. However, past experiments with commercial operations were neither viable nor economical, and severely reduced the quality of monitoring, archiving and data access for academia and the public. Future satellite monitoring programs are essential for conservation and natural resource management, must provide continuity with Landsat, and should be government operated.

show abstract

Section: Landsat Origins Development and Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%