Digital Earth Australia Landsat Data Collection

Geoscience Australia (GA) has acquired Landsat satellite image data over Australia since 1979, from instruments including the Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). This data represents raw telemetry which has either been received directly at Geoscience Australia's (GAs) receiving stations (Alice Springs or - formerly - Hobart), or downloaded from the United States Geological Survey Organisation. The data is maintained in raw telemetry format as a baseline to downstream processes. While this data has been used extensively for numerous land and coastal mapping studies, its utility for accurate monitoring of environmental resources has been limited by the processing methods that have been traditionally used to correct for inherent geometric and radiometric distortions in EO imagery. To improve access to Australia's archive of Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI data, several collaborative projects have been undertaken in conjunction with industry, government and academic partners. These projects have enabled implementation of a more integrated approach to image data correction that incorporates normalising models to account for atmospheric effects, BRDF (Bi-directional Reflectance Distribution Function) and topographic shading (Li et al., 2012). The approach has been applied to Landsat TM/ETM+ and OLI imagery to create the surface reflectance products. Value: The Landsat Raw Data Archive is processed and further calibrated to input to development of information products toward an improved understanding of the distribution and status of environmental phenomena. Scope: Data is provided via the US Geological Survey's (USGS) Landsat program, following downlink and recording of the data at Alice Springs Antenna (operated by Geoscience Australia) or downloaded directly from USGS EROS