John Townshend

18.2k total citations · 5 hit papers
88 papers, 10.3k citations indexed

About

John Townshend is a scholar working on Ecology, Global and Planetary Change and Environmental Engineering. According to data from OpenAlex, John Townshend has authored 88 papers receiving a total of 10.3k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 55 papers in Ecology, 49 papers in Global and Planetary Change and 25 papers in Environmental Engineering. Recurrent topics in John Townshend's work include Remote Sensing in Agriculture (49 papers), Land Use and Ecosystem Services (29 papers) and Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications (15 papers). John Townshend is often cited by papers focused on Remote Sensing in Agriculture (49 papers), Land Use and Ecosystem Services (29 papers) and Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications (15 papers). John Townshend collaborates with scholars based in United States, United Kingdom and China. John Townshend's co-authors include Matthew C. Hansen, Xiao‐Peng Song, Chengquan Huang, Compton J. Tucker, Joe Sexton, Saurabh Channan, Ruth DeFries, Thomas Goff, Éric Vermote and Min Feng and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

John Townshend

87 papers receiving 9.7k citations

Hit Papers

5 papers align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Global land change from 1982 to 2016

2018 1.4k citations Xiao‐Peng Song, Matthew C. Hansen et al. profile →
African Land-Cover Classification Using Satellite Data

1985 811 citations Compton J. Tucker, John Townshend et al. Science profile →
Global, 30-m resolution continuous fields of tree cover: Landsat-based rescaling of MODIS vegetation continuous fields with lidar-based estimates of error

2013 597 citations Joe Sexton, Xiao‐Peng Song et al. International Journal of Digital Earth profile →
Humid tropical forest clearing from 2000 to 2005 quantified by using multitemporal and multiresolution remotely sensed data

2008 500 citations Matthew C. Hansen, John Townshend et al. profile →
A long-term Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) data-set for environmental studies

2013 428 citations Shunlin Liang, John Townshend et al. International Journal of Digital Earth profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
John Townshend United States	48	6.5k	5.7k	3.1k	2.0k	1.2k	88	10.3k
Samuel N. Goward United States	50	7.1k 1.1×	7.1k 1.3×	4.5k 1.5×	2.3k 1.2×	1.1k 1.0×	119	11.3k
Stefan Dech Germany	56	5.2k 0.8×	4.2k 0.7×	2.4k 0.8×	2.5k 1.2×	1.6k 1.4×	292	10.3k
C. O. Justice United States	26	8.8k 1.4×	7.0k 1.2×	3.1k 1.0×	2.5k 1.2×	843 0.7×	40	13.8k
Zhiliang Zhu United States	44	7.2k 1.1×	7.6k 1.3×	2.5k 0.8×	2.5k 1.3×	728 0.6×	139	12.4k
Chengquan Huang United States	53	7.4k 1.1×	6.5k 1.1×	4.3k 1.4×	1.9k 1.0×	1.3k 1.1×	182	11.6k
Chris Justice United States	47	5.9k 0.9×	5.2k 0.9×	2.7k 0.9×	2.5k 1.3×	792 0.7×	98	9.5k
Jeffrey G. Masek United States	55	7.1k 1.1×	7.9k 1.4×	4.8k 1.6×	3.0k 1.5×	2.2k 1.9×	109	13.2k
J. Cihlar Canada	55	5.8k 0.9×	6.2k 1.1×	3.5k 1.1×	2.6k 1.3×	1.3k 1.1×	141	10.5k
Jan Verbesselt Netherlands	44	5.0k 0.8×	5.3k 0.9×	2.4k 0.8×	1.4k 0.7×	841 0.7×	116	8.0k
Christopher O. Justice United States	43	9.5k 1.5×	6.1k 1.1×	2.9k 1.0×	3.6k 1.8×	801 0.7×	70	12.5k

Countries citing papers authored by John Townshend

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of John Townshend's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by John Townshend with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites John Townshend more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by John Townshend

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by John Townshend. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by John Townshend. The network helps show where John Townshend may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of John Townshend

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of John Townshend. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of John Townshend based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with John Townshend. John Townshend is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

Song, Xiao‐Peng, Chengquan Huang, Sassan Saatchi, Matthew C. Hansen, & John Townshend. (2015). Annual Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in the Amazon Basin between 2000 and 2010. PLoS ONE. 10(5). e0126754–e0126754. 52 indexed citations

Sexton, Joe, Praveen Noojipady, Xiao‐Peng Song, et al.. (2015). Conservation policy and the measurement of forests. Nature Climate Change. 6(2). 192–196. 146 indexed citations

Song, Dan‐Xia, Chengquan Huang, Praveen Noojipady, Saurabh Channan, & John Townshend. (2014). Comparison of remote sensing based forest area and change estimation with national forestry inventory between 2000 and 2005 in China. Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research). 4268–4271. 8 indexed citations

Townshend, John, Jeffrey G. Masek, Chengquan Huang, et al.. (2012). Global characterization and monitoring of forest cover using Landsat data: opportunities and challenges. International Journal of Digital Earth. 5(5). 373–397. 254 indexed citations

Feng, Min, et al.. (2012). An approach for quickly labeling land cover types for multiple epochs at globally selected locations. 6203–6206. 9 indexed citations

Huang, Chengquan, Samuel N. Goward, Jeffrey G. Masek, et al.. (2009). Development of time series stacks of Landsat images for reconstructing forest disturbance history. International Journal of Digital Earth. 2(3). 195–218. 110 indexed citations

Huang, Chengquan, Sunghee Kim, Kuan Song, et al.. (2009). Assessment of Paraguay's forest cover change using Landsat observations. Global and Planetary Change. 67(1-2). 1–12. 127 indexed citations

Fang, Hongliang, Shunlin Liang, Hye‐Yun Kim, et al.. (2007). Developing a spatially continuous 1 km surface albedo data set over North America from Terra MODIS products. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. 112(D20). 50 indexed citations

Liu, Desheng, Kuan Song, John Townshend, & Peng Gong. (2007). Using local transition probability models in Markov random fields for forest change detection. Remote Sensing of Environment. 112(5). 2222–2231. 80 indexed citations

10.

Justice, Christopher O. & John Townshend. (2002). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS): A new generation of Land Surface Monitoring. Remote Sensing of Environment. 83. 3 indexed citations

11.

Townshend, John, Ruth DeFries, Xiwu Zhan, et al.. (2002). MODIS 250m AND 500m TIME SERIES DATA FOR CHANGE DETECTION AND CONTINUOUS REPRESENTATION OF VEGETATION CHARACTERISTICS. 233–240. 2 indexed citations

12.

Kearney, Michael, et al.. (2002). Landsat imagery shows decline of coastal marshes in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. Eos. 83(16). 173–178. 108 indexed citations

13.

Tucker, Compton J., et al.. (2000). <title>Tropical deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon</title>. Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE. 4056. 2–11. 1 indexed citations

14.

Liang, Shunlin, et al.. (1997). An operational atmospheric correction algorithm for Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery over the land. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. 102(D14). 17173–17186. 104 indexed citations

15.

Liang, Shunlin & John Townshend. (1996). A modified hapke model for soil bidirectional reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment. 55(1). 1–10. 55 indexed citations

16.

DeFries, Ruth, Christopher B. Field, Inez Fung, et al.. (1995). Mapping the land surface for global atmosphere‐biosphere models: Toward continuous distributions of vegetation's functional properties. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. 100(D10). 20867–20882. 158 indexed citations

17.

Townshend, John, et al.. (1991). Global land cover classification by remote sensing: present capabilities and future possibilities. Remote Sensing of Environment. 35(2-3). 243–255. 344 indexed citations

18.

Tucker, Compton J., John Townshend, & Thomas Goff. (1985). African Land-Cover Classification Using Satellite Data. Science. 227(4685). 369–375. 811 indexed citations breakdown →

19.

Townshend, John. (1981). The spatial resolving power of earth resources satellites. Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment. 5(1). 32–55. 61 indexed citations

20.

Townshend, John & Christopher O. Justice. (1980). Unsupervised classification of MSS Landsat data for mapping spatially complex vegetation. International Journal of Remote Sensing. 1(2). 105–120. 24 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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