Landsat 7 Educational Subsets for Forest Health Analysis

512 x 512 pixel Landsat satellite image subsets are provided for the Forest Watch educational program. The NASA Earthdata platform hosts these multispectral, panchromatic, and thermal band subsets, created by the SCIOPS organization to support student analysis of local forest stands. Data includes both Landsat 7 and some historic Landsat 5 scenes.

Use Cases

• Correlating ground truth field data with multispectral bands (ETM+ bands 1-5 and 7) to assess local forest health.
• Analyzing spatial patterns in panchromatic band (ETM+ band 8) for higher-resolution land cover classification around school locations.
• Investigating thermal signatures from band 6 high and low gain channels to study surface temperature variations in forested areas.
• Comparing historic Landsat 5 TM bands (1-5) with newer Landsat 7 data to observe long-term environmental changes.
• Using provided header file metadata to calibrate and interpret the spectral data for specific geographic subsets.

Strengths

• Each image subset is a standardized 512 x 512 pixel size.
• Data includes three distinct spectral file types per subset: multispectral, panchromatic, and thermal.
• Subsets are tied to specific educational activities with ground truth validation.

Limitations

• Spatial coverage is heavily biased towards New England, USA, limiting geographic generalizability.
• Image format is specific (ERDAS Imagine .img), requiring compatible software like MultiSpec for analysis.
• Sample size and total number of available subsets are unknown.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata (EOS-WEBSTER), sourced from Landsat 7 and Landsat 5 satellites.

Collection Method

Value-added subsets created and supplied by the Forest Watch program for participating schools.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Primarily New England, USA, based on locations of participating Forest Watch schools.