Global open-access DEM performances in Earth's most rugged region High Mountain Asia: A multi-level assessment

Liu, Kai; Song, Chunqiao; Ke, Linghong; Jiang, Ling; Pan, Yuanyuan; Ma, Ronghua

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2019.04.012

Cited by 85 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…However, the results of these studies mostly fit well with the achieved results in flat landscapes. Likewise, the calculated overall accuracies in this study are generally higher than findings from many studies with predominantly undulated to very steep terrain conditions [51,55,57,61]. Nevertheless, these results are also consistent to the calculated error values in very steep terrain.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Furthermore, fewer studies have systematically investigated the influence of different terrain conditions on the vertical accuracy of DEMs. Some work has been done to investigate the appropriateness of DEMs for delineating different landforms [55] and the relationship of DEM errors in correlation to various landform types and altitude [61]. Additionally, the accuracy of DEMs for several small areas with plain, hilly and mountainous terrain [49] and with different slopes [57] was assessed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Relief Dependent Evaluation of Digital Elevation Models on Different Scales for Northern Chile

Kramm

Hoffmeister

2019

IJGI

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Many geoscientific computations are directly influenced by the resolution and accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs). Therefore, knowledge about the accuracy of DEMs is essential to avoid misleading results. In this study, a comprehensive evaluation of the vertical accuracy of globally available DEMs from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) World 3D and TanDEM-X WorldDEM™ was conducted for a large region in Northern Chile. Additionally, several very high-resolution DEM datasets were derived from Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 6/7 and Pléiades stereo satellite imagery for smaller areas. All datasets were evaluated with three reference datasets, namely elevation points from both Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellites, as well as very accurate high-resolution elevation data derived by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The accuracy was also evaluated with regard to the existing relief by relating the accuracy results to slope, terrain ruggedness index (TRI) and topographic position index (TPI). For all datasets with global availability, the highest overall accuracies are reached by TanDEM-X WorldDEM™ and the lowest by ASTER Global DEM (GDEM). On the local scale, Pléiades DEMs showed a slightly higher accuracy as SPOT imagery. Generally, accuracy highly depends on topography and the error is rising up to four times for high resolution DEMs and up to eight times for low-resolution DEMs in steeply sloped terrain compared to flat landscapes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Relief Dependent Evaluation of Digital Elevation Models on Different Scales for Northern Chile

Kramm

Hoffmeister

2019

IJGI

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“…TanDEM-X has been used for applications like extraction of digital building height models [8], archaeological sites [9], DEM fusion using ANN techniques [10] and DEM super-resolution [11]. AW3D30 was found to be the most promising while investigating the performances of seven public freely-accessed DEM datasets (ASTER GDEM V2, SRTM-3 V4.1 DEM, SRTM-1 DEM, AW3D30 DEM, VFP-DEM, MERIT DEM, Seamless SRTM-1 DEM) over the HMA region (Hengduan Mountains and Himalayas) by referring to high-accuracy elevation data from ICESat altimetry [12]. TanDEM-X was assessed in four regions revealing that it is accurate in flat to slightly undulating terrains, but overestimated in treacherous terrain [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Vertical Accuracy for TanDEM-X 90 m DEMs in Plain, Moderate, and Rugged Terrain

Bhardwaj¹

2019

The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Geosciences

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Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry technique generates digital elevation models (DEMs) and is used by various agencies widely. The recently released TanDEM-X DEM by DLR at 90 m spatial resolution is available for free download to users. This paper examines the accuracy of TanDEM-X DEM at different experimental sites with different topographic characteristics. Three sites were chosen, namely Kendrapara (Odisha), Jaipur (Rajasthan), and Dehradun (Uttarakhand) with plain, moderate, and highly undulating terrain conditions. The root mean square error (RMSE) were calculated using ground control points (GCPs) collected by differential GPS method for experimental sites at Dehradun, Jaipur, and Kendrapara. The accuracy of TanDEM-X 90 m datasets is compared with other openly accessible optically-derived DEMs (ASTER GDEM V2, CartoDEM V3 R1, AW3D30) and InSAR-derived DEMs (SRTM, ALOS PALSAR RTC HR). The RMSEs reveal that at Jaipur site with moderate terrain with urban and agriculture as major land use land cover (LULC) classes, the results of TanDEM-X 90 m DEM have higher accuracy than ALOS PALSAR RTC HR DEM. However, it is observed that in a predominantly plain region with agriculture practice (Kendrapara site, Odisha) and rugged region (Dehradun site, Uttarakhand) with mixed land use land cover (LULC) (e.g., forest, urban, streams, and agriculture) the results of ALOS PALSAR RTC HR data have higher accuracy than TanDEM-X 90 m DEM. Further, the study indicates that for a relatively plain site at Kendrapara (Orissa), CartoDEM V3 R1 DEM has the best performance with an RMSE of 1.96 m, which is the lowest among all DEMs utilized in the study.

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“…To reveal the vertical accuracy of different DEM datasets, many studies compared the DEM values against highly accurate ground points (e.g., GPS measurement, NASA ICESat/GLAS) [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ] or reference DEMs [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Furthermore, independent studies on the global or regional DEMs show that the real vertical accuracy is often higher than the official accuracy [ 24 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, comprehensive vertical accuracy evaluations are scarce for the DEMs over the south-central and southwestern regions of China [ 23 , 29 ], especially Hunan province, where the topography and land cover types are complex. In addition, the ICESat/GLAS data is often selected as the reference data to estimate the DEM accuracy, due to its high accuracy and wide coverage [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. However, the accuracy of ICESat/GLAS data with larger-footprint size are highly susceptible to the influence of ground slope.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Vertical Accuracy of Open Global DEMs over Steep Terrain Regions Using ICESat Data: A Case Study over Hunan Province, China

Liu

Zhu

et al. 2020

Sensors

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The global digital elevation model (DEM) is important for various scientific applications. With the recently released TanDEM-X 90-m DEM and AW3D30 version 2.2, the open global or near-global coverage DEM datasets have been further expanded. However, the quality of these DEMs has not yet been fully characterized, especially in the application for regional scale studies. In this study, we assess the quality of five freely available global DEM datasets (SRTM-1 DEM, SRTM-3 DEM, ASTER GDEM2, AW3D30 DEM and TanDEM-X 90-m DEM) and one 30-m resampled TanDEM-X DEM (hereafter called TDX30) over the south-central Chinese province of Hunan. Then, the newly-released high precision ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2) altimetry points are introduced to evaluate the accuracy of these DEMs. Results show that the SRTM1 DEM offers the best quality with a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 8.0 m, and ASTER GDEM2 has the worst quality with the RMSE of 10.1 m. We also compared the vertical accuracies of these DEMs with respect to different terrain morphological characteristics (e.g., elevation, slope and aspect) and land cover types. It reveals that the DEM accuracy decreases when the terrain elevation and slope value increase, whereas no relationship was found between DEM error and terrain aspect. Furthermore, the results show that the accuracy increases as the land cover type changes from vegetated to non-vegetated. Overall, the SRTM1 DEM, with high spatial resolution and high vertical accuracy, is currently the most promising dataset among these DEMs and it could, therefore, be utilized for the studies and applications requiring accurate DEMs.

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Global open-access DEM performances in Earth's most rugged region High Mountain Asia: A multi-level assessment

Cited by 85 publications

References 42 publications

A Relief Dependent Evaluation of Digital Elevation Models on Different Scales for Northern Chile

A Relief Dependent Evaluation of Digital Elevation Models on Different Scales for Northern Chile

Assessment of Vertical Accuracy for TanDEM-X 90 m DEMs in Plain, Moderate, and Rugged Terrain

Evaluation of the Vertical Accuracy of Open Global DEMs over Steep Terrain Regions Using ICESat Data: A Case Study over Hunan Province, China

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