The Landsat Program represents just a few of those satellites but has collected millions of images of Earth in its 40 years of operations. Launched in 1972 by the US, the program has been a continuous eye-in-the-sky ever since, recording and photographing almost every corner of Earth at resolutions of at least 30 metres every 16 days. If you've ever used Google Earth, you've accessed Landsat's vast dataset.
Such long-term observations provides a unique opportunity to monitor global land-use change. A recent study published in Science used Landsat's high resolution data to calculate global deforestation rates between 2000 and 2012. In only 12 years, 2.3 million square kilometres was lost and 0.8 million square kilometres gained. The results, focussed on Indonesia and South America, are visualised below:
Deforestation is a global problem but is largely focussed on the tropical rainforests of the Amazon and Indonesia. Of all the worlds forest loss (between 12 and 15 million hectares annually - or 36 football field each minute), 51% occurs in Indonesia and Brazil.
Forest loss in the Amazon slowed significantly between 2004 and 2012, but recent reports show that there has been a 28% jump in the last year. Indonesia also has a huge amount of deforestation (much of it illegal), with approximately the same amount of annual deforestation as Brazil despite being a quarter of the size.
Satellites have provided a fascinating insight into the extent of global deforestation. You can even find your own section of the world and explore how much it has changed by using this customisable timelapse site. Just click on the 'explore the world' tab and type in your desired location into the search box to see how the land changes.
It will be both interesting and important to see how these timelapses will progress into the future.
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