DIST Product Suite
The land Surface Disturbance (DIST) product maps disturbance detected when there is a change outside a historical norm using optical or SAR imagery. The DIST suite is composed of complementary products, which are named according to their input datasets. Specifically, a separate DIST product is generated from Sentinel-1 and the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) data. The products are designed to share the same structure, GeoTiff file format, file-naming convention, and have posting of 30 m. All products are accessible through the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC).
Below we provide product specification documentation as well as the corresponding product samples conforming to the detailed specifications. Interactive guides are provided demonstrating how products can be loaded and manipulated in an open-source GIS package. Interactive white papers provided through a Jupyter notebook environment outline product introductions and showcase select applications.
DIST from Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS)
DIST Product Specification Document
This document describes the specifications of the OPERA Level-3 Disturbance product (DIST) product that uses Harmonized Landsat-8/9 Sentinel-2A/B/C (HLS) as the primary image-based inputs. The data product comes in two variants according to their temporal scope, and are thus referenced by the short names DIST-ALERT (at the cadence of HLS imagery) and DIST-ANN (a summary of DIST-ALERT over the previous year).
With the following accuracy (details are captured in DIST-HLS calval database)
Strata definition and number of sites (total number of sites, 300). Strata defined with V0 data.
- Stratum 1, no change: 50 sites
- Stratum 2, other generic disturbance: 50 sites
- Stratum 3, low confidence low vegetation cover loss: 50 sites
- Stratum 4, high confidence low vegetation cover loss: 50 sites
- Stratum 5, low confidence high vegetation cover loss: 50 sites
- Stratum 6, high confidence high vegetation cover loss: 50 sites
DIST from Sentinel-1 (DIST-S1)
Sample Products for Los Angeles Wildfire
In early January 2025 several wildfires broke out in the Greater Los Angeles area. The two largest were the Palisades and Eaton fires. To help with disaster response efforts, OPERA provided the Surface Disturbance Alert from Sentinel-1 (DIST-S1-ALERT) prototype product to the NASA Disasters Program. The OPERA DIST-S1 prototype results were preliminary results that were primarily intended to aid the field response and people who wanted to have a rough first look at the area impacted by wildfire.
Interactive Guides
Visualization Guide
Refer to the following visualization guide, which illustrates how users can manipulate products in the open-source QGIS software.
Jupyter Notebook Guides
Guides below are written in Jupyter notebook environment outline and are intended to outline product introductions and showcase select applications.
- Product Overview
Basic overview of the DIST product and visualization of raster layers
Product Overview
- Wildfire Application
How to use DIST for wildfire applications
Wildfire Application
To contact us or give feedback: opera.sep@jpl.nasa.gov
CL#21-6388, CL#26-0250