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In 1972, a satellite was launched which will help to manage world agriculture:
Landsat, the Earth Resources Satellite.
Narrator: Today, over seven billion people and their use of technology
create drastic changes to the land surface and how resources are applied.
In four decades, Landsat satellites have revolutionized
remote sensing by collecting the longest historical archive
of land change images worldwide.
Launching LDCM and continuing the Landsat mission is critical
for the large number of government and private data users worldwide.
For the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley, California,
Landsat plays a major role in monitoring 400 acres of land.
The raw satellite data gets processed extermally as a weekly report.
The Landsat imagery and data in the report show color coded comparisons
of water usage, leaf growth, stress levels,
and other measurements from the current and past years
as well as detailed graphs with the condition of each vineyard block.
Based on this information, managers can plan care
for the vines now and also in the years ahead.
Daniel Bosch: The Landsat image allows us to understand
and quantify how many leaves there are in a vineyard.
Once we know that, then the people we are working with,
they can make calculations of how much water that is.
We can compare it to other vineyards; are we using too much or too little,
are we applying it at the right time.
Narrator: One of the major advantages for the winery
is the use of continuous data to help make long-term decisions in planning.
Among many other uses, Landsat data is applied in managing millions of acres of timberland.
Using a specially designed tool, workers at American Forest Management
are able to analyze satellite data and estimate the Leaf Area Index.
This index shows the concentration of needles on pine trees.
Ben Graham: Once we've processed the raw product, we are able to create maps for clients,
which allow them to analyze the data
look at stands that have high or low Leaf Area Index.
Based off that number they are able to make management decisions
whether it's beneficial to fertilize or possibly do some hardwood control
on a stand to make it grow stronger, faster, healthier.
Narrator: Landsat provides a quicker solution to pinpointing problematic areas,
so they can be further analyzed on the ground.
In contrast, collecting data on the ground or by airplane
involves more manpower, it is slower, and comes at a much higher cost
which makes this series of satellites irreplaceable for many years to come.
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