HLS Quality Data Issue

The Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) science team has made the LP DAAC aware of an HLS Quality Assessment (QA) data issue that impacts the Fmask quality band within the HLS Operational Land Imager Surface Reflectance and TOA Brightness (HLSL30) and HLS Sentinel-2 Multi-spectral Instrument Surface Reflectance (HLSS30) Version 2 data products. HLS Fmask data may contain the following omission and commission errors:

• Omission errors in water detection for cases where water detection using spectral data alone is difficult.
• Omission and commission errors in cloud shadow detection for areas with great topographic relief.

This issue impacts the Fmask band for all HLSL30 granules and all HLSS30 granules prior to February 1, 2022. Other bands within the HLSL30 and HLSS30 datasets are not impacted.

Any updates to the HLS collection will be announced via news announcements on the LP DAAC website. Visit the LP DAAC’s “News” section to see the most recently released news announcements from the LP DAAC. Subscribe to the LP DAAC’s listserv by sending a blank email to lpdaac-join@lists.nasa.gov to receive listserv messages from the LP DAAC regarding data updates.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please contact LP DAAC User Services with any questions or concerns.