Example Resources

NASA does not endorse any non-U.S. Government entity and is not responsible for information contained on non-U.S. Government websites. For non-U.S. Government websites, participants must comply with any data use parameters of that specific website.

NASA Resources

Agriculture and Water Management Pathfinder: Drought, vegetation health, and soil moisture all can be tracked remotely. This data pathfinder provides links to NASA Earth observations that help address issues including water management for irrigation, crop-type identification and land use, and drought preparedness.

Floods Data Pathfinder: Floods are one of the most costly natural disasters. NASA provides many datasets and tools that can aid with decisions regarding flood response and mitigation.

Extreme Heat Data Pathfinder: Abnormally hot and/or humid weather lasting a few days to weeks at a time is occurring more frequently in locations around the world. These events can have detrimental impacts on farms. NASA data can aid with forecasting and monitoring extreme heat events.

NASA Acres: Established in March 2023, NASA Acres Consortium is NASA’s U.S.-focused agriculture and food security program. NASA Acres focuses on applying satellite EO information to the most pressing agricultural and food security challenges facing U.S. farmers, ranchers, and agrifood system stakeholders. NASA Acres works with people across the agriculture sector to develop EO-based data and tools that strengthen U.S. agriculture.

NASA Harvest: NASA Harvest is a consortium of multidisciplinary and multisectoral actors from around the world, led and implemented by the Harvest Hub at the University of Maryland. This consortium brings together world-renown experts working on environmental, economic, and social aspects of agriculture in universities, research centers, industry, space agencies, humanitarian organizations, ministries of agriculture, and more.

Tools

Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS): The Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) offers a simple and efficient way to access and transform geospatial data from a variety of federal data archives. AppEEARS enables users to extract specific data from geospatial datasets using spatial, temporal, and band/layer parameters. Visit the AppEEARS Getting Started to learn more about workflows, viewing results, interacting with results, and downloading requests.

Worldview: The NASA Worldview data visualization application provides the capability to interactively browse more than 1,000 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and download the underlying data.

Giovanni: NASA’s Giovanni is an online application that enables the display and analysis of geophysical parameters. There are many options for analysis. For more information on choosing a type of plot, see the Giovanni User Manual.

NASA Earthdata Search: Earthdata Search is NASA's tool for searching for and discovering NASA Earth science data as well as relevant data available through U.S. and international agencies.

Global Agriculture Monitoring System (GLAM): GLAM is a web-based platform that enables near-real-time monitoring of global croplands, primarily using NASA MODIS satellite data. This tool is being redesigned to incorporate new datasets and improve its speed, flexibility, and computing power.

VEDA (Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis): VEDA is NASA's open-source Earth Science data analysis platform in the cloud.

U.S. Drought Monitor: The U.S. Drought Monitor is a weekly map of drought conditions used by policymakers to help determine drought relief allocations and declarations of drought. NASA satellites provide data about water availability to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA): Crop CASMA provides access to high-resolution data from NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument in an easy-to-use format. Soil moisture data are critical for professionals in the agriculture and natural resources sectors who use soil moisture in tandem with other data to plan crop planting, forecast yields, track droughts or floods, and improve weather forecasts. This application offers a suite of services such as a Web Map Service (WMS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), and Web Processing Services (WPS).

Datasets

There are a variety of remote sensing datasets related to agriculture applications to select from. To locate common datasets of interest, see the Data Pathfinders (above).

In addition, the following Landsat Connections to Agriculture are available:

Earthdata Login: Provides free and immediate access to thousands of NASA Earth data products covering all Earth science disciplines and topic areas for researchers, applied science users, application developers, and the general public. Each participant will need a login to download data. Registration is easy and free of charge, as is data access.

Earthdata Forum: If you have specific questions about how to use data, tools, or resources, please visit the Earthdata Forum. Here, you can interact with other data users and NASA subject matter experts on a variety of Earth science research and applications topics.

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Backgrounders: Covers topics like sensor characteristics, resolutions, and data processing techniques.

Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) Program: Offers in-depth training for agricultural applications (and other applications) for further exploration in remote sensing.

NASA Earth Observatory: Showcases how NASA data shed light on diverse Earth phenomena worldwide. Explore these stories and consider:

Scientific Phenomena Affecting Crops: Which scientific phenomena, revealed by Earth observing data, can impact crop growth and yield for farmers?
Web App Applications: How can these data be utilized by farmers within a web app to enhance their agricultural practices?
Exploring Broader Connections: What further questions or phenomena are sparked by these stories?

FAIR and CARE Principles

FAIR: NASA is working to ensure Earth science and other data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) by machines and people.
CARE: Read The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (include Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics).

Space Agency Partner Resources

Canadian Space Agency (CSA)

GEO.ca: GEO.ca is the definitive source for Canada’s open geospatial information. Use the search function to find datasets that are relevant for farmers.

Flood Mapping Natural Resources Canada: Flood maps illustrate areas that are potentially at risk of flooding, indicating where water may reach during specific flood events.

Earth Observation Data Management System (EODMS): The Earth Observation Data Management System (EODMS) houses all the Government of Canada's Earth Observation open data, including data from the RADARSAT missions.

RADARSAT-1 Data Usage Tutorial: Scripts demonstrating the use of RADARSAT-1 imagery from an AWS bucket.

Synthetic Aperture Radar Tutorial: This tutorial script contains samples for using RADARSAT missions images in python and QGIS to help users to make use of CSA data based on their needs.

RADARSAT Constellation Mission: RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) is a constellation of three Canadian satellites that use a technology called synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to capture images of the Earth's surface. These can be used to monitor surface water and soil moisture.

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT): This page provides information about the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. This mission, led by NASA and Frances' space agency (CNES) with contributions from the CSA and the UK Space Agency, provides new and detailed information on one of the most important resources we share – water. This information should help participants better understand the importance of surface water.

National Space Activities Commission of Argentina (CONAE)

Spectral Signature Catalogue: This page provides water, soil and vegetation signatures. To access this resource, register here.

Crops: This page provides WMS for crop products.

For additional resources you could conduct an internet search to gather relevant information that may be useful. Potential search keywords could include:

Earthaccess
OpenET
Crop Harvest Dataset Zenodo
FAO / NASA Harvest Public Crop Type Datasets

Leveraging Earth Observation Data for Informed Agricultural Decision-Making