g several individual Landsat scenes to show the full lake area. From 2000 to 2010, some changes can be seen. In the final image (2014), the entire southern portion of the salty lakebed is now exposed.
Future Landsat imagery will continue to be a useful tool for mapping and monitoring of further changes to Lake Urmia and its surrounding areas.
These two Landsat images show the urban area around Cape Town, South Africa. The more recent image (right) reveals scars from several fires that broke out in early March 2015, and were intensified by strong winds and hot summer temperatures.
The dark fire scar on the left side of the March 11 image is from a fire that had started ten days earlier and burned more than 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres). The dark scar on the right side of the same image is from the Jonkershoek Fire, which started March 9 and was still active at the time this image was collected. About 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) were burned before this second fire was contained.
Landsat imagery is a valuable tool for the mapping and measurement of burned extent and lost vegetation due to wildfires. As the landscape begins to recover, Landsat will also be useful for monitoring the area’s regrowth and restoration.
Agricultural Land Use along the Chira River, Peru March 20, 2015
These two Landsat images show the expansion of agricultural fields along the Chira River in northern Peru. The green of irrigated fields contrasts against the arid background of the land in this coastal region. The main crops in this region include rice, cotton, maize, mangoes, and lemons.
The new agricultural areas in the second image (2014) are supported by irrigation from the Chira River and Poechos Reservoir in the upper right portion of the images. The reservoir and its system of dams were developed to generate electricity, control flooding, and support local irrigation needs.
Landsat imagery is often used to monitor the status and changes of agricultural land use and water resources over time.
New Land Forming in the Atchafalaya Basin March 6, 2015
Most of the Mississippi River Delta in southern Louisiana is sinking. An area almost the size of Delaware has been lost to subsidence over the past 80 years. However, further west along the coastline is an area of delta buildup.
These two Landsat images show changes to the coastline along the Atchafalaya River outlets between 1984 and 2014. Sediments carried by the Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi, are responsible for the growth of two new river deltas seen in the 2014 image. These two deltas are from the main Atchafalaya River (right) and its associated Wax Lake Outlet (left). Both of these channels were used for flood control during the Mississippi River floods of 2012, when water was diverted from the Mississippi through the Atchafalaya River Basin into the Gulf of Mexico.
The slow-moving waters of the Atchafalaya River allow suspended sediments to settle near shore. This creates an optimal land- and marsh-building environment. In contrast, the lower Mississippi River’s waters flow quickly through a narrow channel, carrying most of its suspended sediments far offshore. The coastal marshland that has now been built in the Atchafalaya region gives planners hope that other areas of the Mississippi Delta could be similarly rebuilt or preserved through land and water management.
The continuous acquisition of Landsat imagery now spans more than four decades, providing a valuable historical record that can help researchers and scientists monitor and understand landform changes on the Earth’s surface.
These two Landsat images show several of Iceland’s ice caps as they appeared in September 1986 and 2014.
The largest white area is the Mýrdalsjökull Ice Cap. Underneath this massive mound of ice sits the active Katla volcano. Katla erupts every 40–80 years and is accompanied by high-volume glacial outburst floods (jökulhlaups). The smaller ice cap to the west is Eyjafjallajökull. This ice cap also covers an active volcano, which last erupted in 2010 and disrupted air travel for several w