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World Data Center for Remotely Sensed Land Data - Sioux Falls



Information on the World Data Center System | EROS Data Center | EarthExplorer

1. Introduction

World Data Centers (WDC's) are designated by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), Panel on World Data Centers.  The mission statement of the WDC system is:  “Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding.  The World Data Center system works to guarantee access to solar, geophysical, and related environmental data.  It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing, and disseminating data and information.”  In the U.S., the World Data Center Coordination Office is managed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences through its Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data.  In 1992, the EROS Data Center was designated as a World Data Center for Remotely Sensed Land Data.

The World Data Center for Remotely Sensed Land Data (WDC/RSLD) is located at the U.S. Geological Survey's EROS Data Center (EDC) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Center holds the world's largest collection of space and aircraft imagery of the Earth's land surface, including over 3 million images acquired from satellites and over 8 million aerial photographs, and is also a focal point for information about data acquired by other countries' Earth observing satellites.

Facilities include advanced data analysis laboratories, production digital and photographic data processing systems, and on-line access and ordering capabilities for EDC holdings and the land data holdings of other facilities.

The EDC also hosts the NASA-supported Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for land processes data, thus providing WDC users access to information about a wide variety of remotely sensed data collected by NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) sensors.

2. Types of Data Available Through the WDC/RSLD

Materials available through the WDC/RSLD consist of digital and photographic images of the land area of the Earth. In addition to the data themselves, extensive "metadata" (reference material describing the holdings), in printed or electronic form, are available to assist users in the screening and selection of data.

Among the data available through the WDC/RSLD are:

  • Over 6 million frames of aerial photography, primarily of the US and at various scales, acquired from the 1940’s to the present, including USGS mapping photography, NASA research project photography, and photography acquired by other US federal agencies.

  • Nearly 2 million frames of aerial photography, both color and black and white, collected from the mid-80's to the present by the U.S. interagency National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP).

  • Over 300,000 frames of aerial photography of Antarctica, acquired between 1946 and the present, under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).

  • Nearly a million frames of declassified Corona satellite photography, acquired by the US government of areas throughout the world from 1960 through 1980.

  • Digital Landsat satellite images, providing repetitive coverage of areas throughout the world since 1972.  These data include 80-meter-resolution images collected by the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) instrument from 1972 until the early 90’s, 30-meter Thematic Mapper (TM) data acquired beginning in 1982, and 15-meter-resolution Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) imagery acquired beginning in mid-1999. 

  • Over 300,000 1-km resolution Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) digital images acquired since 1987, worldwide.

Specific datasets available through the WDC-Remotely Sensed Land Data-Sioux Falls are:

  • Aerial Photography
    • National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP) Photography
    • National High Altitude Aerial Photography (NHAP) Photography
    • Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Photography
    • USGS Mapping Photography
    • U.S. Government Aerial Photography
    • Digital Orthophoto Quadrangles
  • Satellite Imagery
    • Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) Images
    • Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) Images
    • Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) Images
    • Multi-resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Landsat Data
    • CORONA Satellite Photography
    • Advanced Very-High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Satellite Images
    • Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)


    3. Customer Services 

    All requests for information on data available through the WDC/RSLD, the establishment of customer accounts, or orders for products should be directed to:

    Customer Services
    WDC for Remotely Sensed Land Data
    U.S. Geological Survey
    EROS Data Center
    Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57198
    USA

    Phone: 605-594-6151, OR 1-800-252-4547 (8:00-4:00 pm CT)
    Fax: 605-594-6589
    Email: custserv@usgs.gov
  • Alternatively, users can use the EarthExplorer web site, which provides on-line documentation, query, preview, and ordering capabilities, at http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov, or the USGS Global Visualization Viewer (GLOVIS) at http://glovis.usgs.gov for selected satellite data.  Information on data available through the EDC DAAC for Land Processes is available at http://edcdaac.usgs.gov.

    4. Distribution Policy

    Data at the WDC/RSLD are available to scientists of all countries at the cost of reproduction and distribution. This cost varies depending on the source and distribution media, and processing required to generate the desired product. Contact Customer Services for information on prices for specific products.

    5. Data Acceptance Policy

    It is the policy of the U.S. Geological Survey to accept data collections acquired by other organizations, the cataloging, archiving, and distribution of which would enhance their utility and facilitate their accessibility to the user community. Collections meeting this criteria will be considered and accepted based on (a) the future utility of the data within the U.S. Geological Survey mission, (b) the significance of the data to the user community, (c) the quality and condition of the data, and (d) the costs of preparing the data for archiving, cataloging, and distribution.

    The U.S. Geological Survey retains the right to return to the contributor data that does not meet these acceptance criteria.

    Conditions of the data transfer and subsequent distribution will generally be specified in a Memorandum of Understanding or other written agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey and the contributing organization.


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