Landsat Collection 2 Level 2 Satellite Imagery for Africa

Digital Earth Africa provides free and open access to Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 products over the African continent. The data includes observations from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellites, with historical records dating back to the late 1980s and new acquisitions updated regularly. These products are produced by the United States Geological Survey and are certified as Analysis Ready Data for Land (CARD4L)-compliant.

Use Cases

• Monitor land cover and land use change over time based on the historical time-series data.
• Analyze agricultural patterns and crop health based on the Level-2 surface reflectance products.
• Assess environmental impacts and natural resource management based on the geospatially accurate imagery.
• Support disaster response and recovery efforts based on the regularly updated, analysis-ready data.

Strengths

• Data is certified as Analysis Ready Data for Land (CARD4L)-compliant, ensuring interoperability and minimal preprocessing.
• Provides a historical time series dating back to the late 1980s from multiple Landsat satellites.
• Offers improved geometric accuracy and radiometric calibration as part of USGS Collection 2 released in early 2021.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

United States Geological Survey (USGS), provided by Digital Earth Africa.

Collection Method

Satellite imagery acquired by Landsat 5, 7, and 8, processed to Level-2 (surface reflectance) standards.

Time Range

Late 1980s to present.

Freshness

New Level-2 data for Landsat 7 and 8 are available 15 to 27 days after acquisition.

Geography

Africa.