Introduction

This is a detailed tutorial on how to download Landsat imagery from the USGS EarthExplorer. This tutorial is beginner-friendly and will take through the whole process of downloading free Landsat imagery, from the registration to the actual download. There are pictorial guides of each step, so you can always follow along. Now, let's get started!

Table of Content

Introduction

What is Landsat Imagery?

How to download Landsat Imagery from USGS EarthExplorer

Step 1: Visit the EarthEXplorer website

Step 2: Create an Account or Login

Step 3: Fill your details

Step 4: Define your Area of Interest (AOI) in the “Search Criteria” Tab

Step 5: Select your preferred data in the “Data Sets” Tab

Step 6: Filter your selected data in the “Additional Criteria” Tab (Optional)

Step 7: Download free Landsat Imagery in the “Results” Tab

Conclusion

What is Landsat Imagery?

Landsat Imagery is an image of the Earth's land surface acquired by Landsat satellites continuously over time, providing data to help gain invaluable insights into the Earth's features, changes, and patterns and make informed decisions about natural resources and the environment.

In my previous article, I extensively discussed various online satellite imagery data sources, their uniqueness, and their pros and cons. If you have not read it, you should check it out here.  

How to download Landsat Imagery from USGS EarthExplorer

This guide is absolutely beginner-friendly, so we are starting with how to create an account on USGS EarthExplorer. If you already have a user account, login and go ahead to Step 4.  

USGS EarthExplorer is a very common satellite data source that has a vast and diverse collection of data. You can access imagery from different earth-observing missions such as Landsat, Sentinel, ASTER, Terra and Aqua MODIS, etc. A detailed explanation of this platform is available in my previous article: Free Online Satellite Imagery Data Sources.

Step 1: Visit the EarthEXplorer website 

Step 2: Create an Account or Login

• At the top right corner of the website, click on Register to create a new account, or Login if you are an existing user. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will create a new account.

• As a new user, once you click on Register, you will be required to type in your preferred username and password. However, there are requirements for choosing a username and password.

Username Requirements:

• Must be between 4 and 30 characters

• May contain alphabetic and numeric characters

• May only contain the following special characters

  • period "."

  • at sign "@"

  • underscore "_"

  • dash "-"

Password Requirements:

• Must be between 12 and 64 characters

• Cannot contain 3 or more repeating characters (eg. "aaa")

Following these requirements, fill in your preferred username and password and click Continue

Step 3: Fill your details

• After successfully registering, you will be required to fill in some information to better understand how the data you are downloading is being utilized. Read each of the questions and choose the appropriate answers for you.

• Submit your registration after filling in all the required details successfully.

• You will be required to confirm and activate your account by clicking the link in the email. Be sure to check your spam folder if you cannot find the email. 

• Click on Return to Login Page when you have activated your account to sign in.

  

• And now, you should be logged in.

Step 4: Define your Area of Interest (AOI) in the “Search Criteria” Tab

• Now that you are logged in, you are ready to search for and download Landsat Imagery.

• In the Search Criteria Tab, you need to specify your AOI, and you can do this in multiple ways: 

  • Geocoder: This allows you to select a geocoding method. You can either use Feature (GNIS), Address/Place, or Path/Row to choose your AOI. 

• KML/Shapefile Upload: You can upload a KML/shapefile of your AOI if you already have one.

• Map Interface: You can zoom in to your AOI on the map interface and draw a shape to select your AOI.

• Coordinates: You can also manually enter the coordinates of your area of interest if you have the coordinates.

• You can use whatever method you prefer to define your Area of Interest. 

• After defining your AOI, you can choose a date range, a cloud cover range, and your preferred result options to streamline your search.

Step 5: Select your preferred data in the “Data Sets” Tab

• After defining your area of interest, and you have selected your preferred date and cloud cover range. It is now time to select the data you want to download. 

• You can use the Data Sets Search tab to search for it or you scroll down and navigate to the data category.

• In this case, we are downloading Landsat 8 Imagery. You will observe that there are two levels (Level 1 and Level 2) in Collection 2. Level 2 is mostly used because it is atmospherically corrected (Surface Reflectance) data.

• Check  Landsat 8 C2/L2 data

Step 6: Filter your selected data in the “Additional Criteria” Tab (Optional)

• The “Additional Criteria” tab is optional, and this tab is to further refine your search by filtering your data. Here, you can specify additional parameters such as image quality, date product generated, collection category, sensor identifier, and more. These criteria can help you narrow down the dataset that best suits your needs.

• In this category, we will leave it empty because we already set the date and cloud cover range for our selected data in the “Data Sets” Tab.

Step 7: Download free Landsat Imagery in the “Results” Tab

• Now that we have selected the dataset and defined our date and cloud cover range, click the "Results" button. This will update your search results to return results that match your query.

• When results are returned, it is important to check for some details before you proceed to download.

  • You want to make sure the results returned actually cover your area of interest. You can confirm this by checking the footprint of the imagery.

  • In the image below, checking the footprint shows that this particular imagery result does not cover my AOI. The red color is my AOI while the green color is the footprint of the first imagery.

  • You need to ensure that you always check the footprint of the imageries returned in the results to be sure it actually covers your area of interest.

  • Do this until you find one that actually covers it.

• Once you find one that matches your preference, you also need to check the metadata to see the “data” about your data.

• Here, you will see the imagery date, the time of acquisition, the cloud cover, and other information. Most times, the most important thing you need to check is the cloud cover percentage. Because, despite setting your range in the “Data Sets” Tab, there are times when higher cloud cover is returned in the results.

• When everything looks good, you can then proceed to download.

• Once it downloads, you are ready to do your geospatial processing and analysis with Landsat 8 Imagery.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have learned how to download Landsat Imagery from the USGS EarthExplorer Platform. Following this detailed step, you should be able to download yours as well.  Just as we have downloaded Landsat Imagery, you can also access a vast of other satellite images that date way back on the platform. USGS EarthExplorer has its uniqueness, pros, and cons, and if you would like to know all about that, be sure to check my article on Free Online Satellite Imagery Data Sources. 

Check out the Satellite Imagery Series, where we explore all about Satellite Imagery, from basics to making the most of it here.