Bureau of Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leverages ground, air and spaceborne remote sensing technologies to support its mission to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. These technologies include aerial and close-range photography, multispectral, hyperspectral, and thermal infrared camera/imaging systems, as well as radar and light detection and ranging (lidar). The BLM also utilizes passive and active imaging system information collected by uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). Remote sensing data and products are being used to address a host of BLM monitoring requirements, including energy development, mine production verification, assessment of land cover condition through time, and wildfire response and mitigation. Finally, the BLM requires field-based measurements to support management decisions covering vast expanses of land. By integrating remote sensing into the BLM's Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring strategy, field-based data are used to generate information and maps that support land management decision making. The BLM is leveraging remote sensing to provide an integrated, quantitative monitoring approach to efficiently and effectively document the impacts from authorized and unauthorized disturbance and land treatment activities at local and regional scales.