Global Land Survey 2005: New set of Landsat imagery available

A new collection of selected Landsat earth images worldwide, Global Land Survey 2005 (GLS2005), is now available for free download to any user around the globe.

Under a long-term partnership, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA periodically selected and processed thousands of the best-available Landsat satellite images, or “scenes,” into a Global Land Survey, recording baseline conditions across the Earth’s land surface such as forest cover, urban sprawl, cropland areas, glacier size, regional snow cover, drought status, wildfire scars, and coastal features.

Nearly 10,000 satellite images, each covering approximately 100 X 100 miles, are now available from the recently completed 2005 data set. All GLS images can be previewed and downloaded for free at either of two USGS web sites: Glovis or Earth Explorer.

The earliest GLS data sets, GLS1975 and GLS1990, were drawn from U.S. and international partner receiving-station archives of images.