Imagery and GIS. Kass Green

       Commercial Satellite Imagery Providers. DigitalGlobe and Airbus are the two largest and longest-established HVH-resolution commercial satellite imagery vendors. They sell licenses to worldwide 30-cm to 1-m panchromatic and 1-m to 4-m multispectral imagery from a constellation of satellites (see table 4.2) under licensing agreements. Both vendors also have extensive archives, especially DigitalGlobe, whose archive dates back to IKONOS—the first high-resolution civilian satellite system, launched in 1999. Private companies currently operating HVH earth observing remote sensing systems includeDigitalGlobe: https://www.digitalglobe.com/,Airbus Defense and Space: http://www.intelligence-airbusds.com/,Planet: https://www.planet.com/,UrtheCast: https://www.urthecast.com/,Earth-i: http://earthi.space/.

       USGS EROS Center. A full listing of EROS archive products can be found at https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/products_overview. HVH-resolution panchromatic and multispectral imagery offered for download from EROS are older datasets and include:DigitalGlobe imagery purchased by federal agencies. IKONOS, GeoEye-1, QuickBird, and WorldView-1 to -3 imagery purchased by federal agencies is available to other US federal agency users only, either at no cost or for the cost of a license upgrade. https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/UCDPDigital orthophoto quadrangles in panchromatic, true color, or color infrared with a 1-m spatial resolution. They are available to all users for download at no cost as quarter quadrangles (3.75 minutes) for 48 states and were completed in 2004. USGS also has black-and-white, full 7.5-minute quadrangles for much of Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/DOQsOrbView-3 imagery collected between 2003 and 2007. This 1-meter panchromatic and 4-meter multispectral data is available for download to all users at no cost and without license restrictions.National High Altitude Program (NHAP) black-and-white (1:58,000) and color infrared photographs (1:80,000) of the conterminous United States collected from 1980 to 1989, which can be downloaded as scanned files. They are available to all users at no cost. The photos have not been terrain corrected. https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/NHAPNational Aerial Photography Program (NAPP) photography 1:40,000 black-and-white and color infrared images collected over the 48 conterminous states from 1987 to 2007 and can be downloaded as scanned files. They are available to all users at no cost. The photos have not been terrain corrected. https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/NAPP

       USDA APFO. The APFO has a vast amount of aerial photography of the lower 48 states, captured by USDA from 1955 to the present, including the NAIP imagery mentioned above. Until recently, the only way to gain access to its film archive was through requests made to APFO for an aerial photograph to be scanned. However, it is currently scanning much of the film archives. One of the most efficient ways to investigate APFO archive content is through the ArcGIS Online APFO Historical Availability Tile Layer, which lists the type of imagery collected and the year of collection for every county in the 48 conterminous states.

       Bureau of Land Management. The location and date of BLM film collections can be researched using the BLM’s interactive map (https://navigator.blm.gov/home). Copies of photos in the archive must be requested from the BLM.

       National Archives. This site allows registered researchers to gain access to historical maps and aerial photography. It is a rich resource for historical imagery and maps, going back to the 1930s (https://www.archives.gov/research/order/maps.html).

       Declassified intelligence archives. Both the USGS EROS Center and the National Archives and Records Administration maintain archives of more than 990,000 declassified black-and-white CORONA, ARGON, LANYARD, KH-7, and KH-9 satellite reconnaissance film images captured by the United States government worldwide from 1959 to 1980. USGS creates scans of the images on demand for $30.00 per frame. Most of this imagery was collected outside the United States. See https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/declass_1 and https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/declass_2.

       All Landsat imagery from 1972 to the present. The archive distributes more than 7,000 terabytes of Landsat imagery annually. Starting with Landsat 1 (launched in 1972) with four bands (G, R, 2 IR) at 80-m spatial resolution, the Landsat constellation of satellites has evolved to the Landsat 8 system (launched in 2013) with 10 bands at 15-m (panchromatic); 30-m (visible, near-infrared, and short-wave infrared); and 100-m (thermal) spatial resolution. No other remote sensing system provides a 40+ year continuous record of global observations. Landsat 9 is currently under construction and will be identical to Landsat 8 with a planned launch date in the early 2020s.