LandSat Satellite Imagery

Landsat 7 ETM+, July 5, 1999, Path 14 Row 35

The US Geological Survey (USGS) now offers, at no cost, the entire Landsat archive online (as of December 2008). Orthorectified Landsat data are available for free download from the Global Visualization Viewer (GloVis) at https://glovis.usgs.gov/ and Earth Explorer at https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/.

Additionally, a lot of Landsat and other satellite data may be downloaded for free from the Global Land Cover Facility(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) (GLCF).

For more information about the Landsat program and data, see:

NC State University Libraries has a collection of select Landsat data as listed below. Unlike earlier Landsat data, there are no restrictions on redistribution.

Selecting Files

The image below shows how the twelve scenes that cover North Carolina overlap. Notice that some locations are covered by as many as four scenes - Stanly County for example.

NC Landsat Scenes

Click here for a larger version of this image

The North Carolina scene index is available as a shapefile in State Plane 1983 (meters) on the Geodata Server at ftp://gisdata.lib.ncsu.edu/landsat7/ or under \landsat7 by mapped drive.

NC State University Landsat Data Holdings

NC State University Libraries' Landsat data holdings and may be considered organized into three different batches, some with overlapping dates: Batch 1 was purchased by NC State University Libraries and covers roughly 1999-2000 with both "leaf-on" and "leaf-off" time periods. Batch 2 was given to NC State University Libraries by UNC University Libraries, and includes data for 1984, 1999-2002, and 2004. Batch 3 are multiple scenes from Path 16, Row 35, which spans the Piedmont of North Carolina.

One advantage of using these scenes, rather than searching for and downloading data from a data website, is that they have probably already been selected by someone as being cloud-free and of high quality. Also, they will be much easier to acquire than navigating the download websites.

Batch 1:

"Leaf-off" data is available for winter 1999-2000 and "leaf-on" data is available for 2000 (some 1999). The data is tiled in 12 scenes, identified by Path/Row in GeoTIFF format and in UTM (different zones). The images are radiometrically and geometrically corrected (level 1G product). Path/Row and image dates are indicated in the file name (e.g. L72017035_03520000306_B80.TIF is from Path 17, Row 35, and was taken March 6, 2000).

Leaf-off data Leaf-off data dates range from Dec. 1999 to Mar. 2000 (one date per scene). A readme file briefly explains data organization. The data are currently available for NC State University access on the Geodata Server at ftp://gisdata.lib.ncsu.edu/landsat7/leafoff/19992000/ or path \landsat7\leafoff\19992000 by mapped drive.

Leaf-on data Leaf-on data dates range from May 2000 to Sept. 2000, except for Path 19/Row 35 and Path19/Row 36 which are available for Sept. 1999 because of unavailability of cloud-free imagery for 2000. Path 18/Row 35 is made available for both May 2000 and Sept. 1999 because of partial cloud cover. The data are currently available for NC State University access on the Geodata Server at ftp://gisdata.lib.ncsu.edu/landsat7/leafon/2000/ or path \landsat7\leafon\2000 by mapped drive.

Projection: All of these images are in UTM Zone 17 except:

Zone 16: Path 19, Row 36 Zone 18: Path 14, Row 35; Path 14, Row 36; Path 15, Row 35

The WGS84 ellipsoid is employed as the Earth model for coordinate transformation.

For each scene (path/row) there are 9 TIFF images--one for each band as indicated in the following table:

LandSat 7 bands

The last 3 characters of the filename stem (before .TIF) indicate the band. NOTE: Filenames are very long. It may be necessary to shorten the filename to use the data in some software.

Batch 2:

1984 Data

There are 10 Thematic Mapper(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) images from May 19 to August 4, 1984. This set is missing Path 016 Row 035 and Path 017 Row 036 in order to completely cover North Carolina. (There is a confirmed mid 1980s image available from the GLCF (This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) website for Path 017 Row 036 that can be downloaded).

Spatial resolution-28.5 meters; Format-GeoTIFF; Projection-UTM; Datum-WGS 1984; Units-Meters.

Path 14 Row 35: 08/04/1984
Path 14 Row 36: 05/16/1984
Path 15 Row 35: 06/08/1984
Path 15 Row 36: 06/08/1984
Path 16 Row 36: 07/01/1984
Path 17 Row 35: 06/06/1984
Path 18 Row 35: 09/01/1984
Path 18 Row 36: 06/13/1984
Path 19 Row 35: 05/19/1984
Path 19 Row 36: 05/19/1984

1999-2000 Data

There is a full set of 12 Landsat 7 images from 1999-2002 that covers North Carolina. Some of these data images were used to create the 2001 National Land Cover Database for the state.

Spatial resolution-30 meters; Format-NLAPS, BSQ; Projection-Albers Conical Equal Area; Datum-NAD 1983; Units-Meters.

Path 14 Row 35: 03/23/2002
Path 14 Row 36: 03/23/2002
Path 15 Row 35: 03/08/2000
Path 15 Row 36: 02/26/2002
Path 16 Row 35: 10/07/1999
Path 16 Row 36: 11/10/2000
Path 17 Row 35: 02/24/2002
Path 17 Row 36: 02/24/2002
Path 18 Row 35: 10/26/2001
Path 18 Row 36: 10/26/2001
Path 19 Row 35: 03/10/2002
Path 19 Row 36: 12/04/2001

2004 Data

There are 2 CDs of Landsat 7 ETM+ imagery from July 2004 for Path 16 Row 35, which covers roughly the central Piedmont area of NC excluding the southernmost counties. One image is a scan line corrector (SLC) off image, so it is gappy. Another image was used to fill the gaps. We have both the gappy and gapless images.

Spatial resolution-28.5 meters; Format-GeoTIFF; Projection-UTM; Datum-WGS 1984; Units-Meters.

Batch 3:

This batch of Landsat images were purchased cooperatively by Duke, UNC, and NC State University Libraries. The scenes are all for Path 16, Row 35, which extends from West of the Triad to East of the Triangle, North into southern Virginia, and South into the NC Sandhills. The purpose of this acquisition was a land cover change study at Duke.

The imagery is in standard National Land Archive Processing System (NLAPS) Data Format (NDF). Some are also in GeoTIFF format. Contact Data Services to discuss various options for converting these into other formats if needed.

The following dates are available on the Geodata Server at ftp://gisdata.lib.ncsu.edu/landsat7/P16R35/ or path \landsat7\P16R35\ by mapped drive.

  • 1985 November 9
  • 1988 March 22
  • 1991 November 26
  • 1992 May 4
  • 1994 April 8, September 15
  • 1997 March 15
  • 1999 October 15
  • 2000 November 2
  • 2001 March 26, September 18
  • 2002 August 20, September 5, November 8, November 24
  • 2004 November 29
  • 2005 October 31
  • 2006 November 3