Tom Loveland

PROFESSIONAL | SCIENCE

TOM LOVELAND

Sioux Falls, SD

Geographic Global Landscape Expert

Thomas (Tom) Loveland was a member of the first career-long generation of explorers studying the condition and changes in the Earth from the vantage of space. Joining a new field called geographic remote sensing, he spent over 40 years using imagery obtained from Earth-orbiting satellites to piece together the contemporary land history of the planet while contributing ideas and leadership to expand global Earthobservation capabilities.

His particular passion was understanding land use and land cover change – how the Earth’s lands are used, why some places are changing and others are stable, what causes those changes, and what the consequences of change are for the Earth’s citizens and natural systems.

Growing up in Sioux Falls, Tom was an uninspired student in his teens who preferred to explore the countryside rather than focus on studies. With nothing better to do after finishing high school, he enrolled in South Dakota State University (SDSU), a move that gradually changed his outlook on life. Inspired by geography professor Dr. Ed Hogan at SDSU, Tom discovered a new curiosity for learning and ideas, a love of geography, and a desire to explore and understand a changing world.

A development north of Sioux Falls in the early 1970s provided a focus that ultimately defined Tom’s professional future. In the late 1960s, Stewart Udall, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, declared his vision to use aerospace technologies and the vantage of space to establish Project EROS,

a program "aimed at gathering facts about the natural resources of the Earth from Earth-orbiting satellites.”

Thanks to strong South Dakota political support and Sioux Falls development community advocacy, a site north of Sioux Falls became the home of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) world-renowned Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. EROS took on stewardship of a series of Earthorbiting satellites named Landsat, and since 1972 built an ongoing, unprecedented global archive of Earth imagery that allows anyone, anywhere, to use Landsat data to objectively understand how and why the Earth has changed – from 1972 through today.

SDSU was already a leader in remote-sensing research and education, and Tom had the opportunity to gain an understanding of the potential of this new field. The newly opened EROS Center gave him summer internships in the early 1970s to gain real experience in remote-sensing research and applications.

After completing BS and MS degrees in geography from SDSU, Tom started his career using Landsat to map land cover and vegetation in support of South Dakota and Arizona state government missions. He joined EROS in 1979 and stayed for most of the remainder of his career, leaving once to complete a PhD in geography and remote sensing at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

as the EROS Chief Scientist, providing scientific leadership that ensured that the EROS mission met the needs of scientists, resource managers, and decision makers around the world.

Tom’s career list of research projects literally spanned the globe. He documented land cover and land change in all 50 states and his research provided in-depth understanding of the rates, causes, and consequences of U.S. land change. The results contributed to the management of economic security, environmental health, and natural resources management. He spent several years traveling throughout the northern half of Africa designing and implementing drought monitoring systems that provided early information on issues that affected food security and public wellbeing.

Perhaps his most significant impact was as leader of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme global land cover initiative in which he pioneered the use of remote sensing for global land cover mapping. The results of that effort continue to be used to address global environmental change science questions. His research and leadership defined a key component of USGS geographic research and led to the global recognition of the USGS as a land use and land cover research innovator.

Scientific service has also been an important aspect of Tom’s career. For many years, he led the land use and land cover component for the U.S. Global Change Research Program and was an author for two of the congressionally mandated periodic National Climate Assessments, which evaluate climate impacts on U.S. land use and land cover.

His most visible service, arguably with the most lasting impact, was his leadership in advancing the science and applications of the Landsat program. He defined and led the NASA/USGS Landsat Science Team, a group of scientists and engineers from around the world that is dedicated to advancing the use of Earth observations for natural resources management and scientific understanding. Working with NASA, USGS, and U.S. aerospace industry partners, the Landsat program has experienced unprecedented success, with the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013, building Landsat 9 for a 2020 launch, and defining the capabilities of Landsat 10 for launch in the next decade.

Tom served as an SDSU adjunct professor and taught numerous remote sensing and geography courses over the past 35 years. He also contributed to graduate education in many universities throughout the U.S. and Europe. One of his most satisfying activities was contributing to the establishment of the SDSU-USGS Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence (GSCE). Established in 2006, Tom served as the USGS co-director for 12 years. GSCE conducts international and in-state research programs aimed at both educating the next generation of remote-sensing scholars, but also investigating major scientific and environmental challenges. The GSCE is a testimony to SDSU’s commitment to research excellence, and the Center has become a world leader in remote sensing and global monitoring scholarship.

NOMINATED BY STEVEN YOUNG

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