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Vertical Accuracy of Freely Available Global Digital Elevation Models (ASTER, AW3D30, MERIT, TanDEM-X, SRTM, and NASADEM)

Uuemaa, Evelyn, Ahi, Sander, Montibeller, Bruno, Muru, Merle, Kmoch, Alexander·2020·Remote Sensing
DOI 10.3390/rs12213482
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Abstract

Freely available global digital elevation models (DEMs) are important inputs for many research fields and applications. During the last decade, several global DEMs have been released based on satellite data. ASTER and SRTM are the most widely used DEMs, but the more recently released, AW3D30, TanDEM-X and MERIT, are being increasingly used. Many researchers have studied the quality of these DEM products in recent years. However, there has been no comprehensive and systematic evaluation of their quality over areas with variable topography and land cover conditions. To provide this comparison, we examined the accuracy of six freely available global DEMs (ASTER, AW3D30, MERIT, TanDEM-X, SRTM, and NASADEM) in four geographic regions with different topographic and land use conditions. We used local high-precision elevation models (Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), Pleiades-1A) as reference models and all global models were resampled to reference model resolution (1m). In total, 608 million 1x1 m pixels were analyzed. To estimate the accuracy, we generated error rasters by subtracting each reference model from the corresponding global DEM and calculated descriptive statistics for this difference (e.g., median, mean, root-mean-square error (RMSE)). We also assessed the vertical accuracy as a function of the slope, slope aspect, and land cover. We found that slope had the strongest effect on DEM accuracy, with no relationship for slope aspect. The AW3D30 was the most robust and had the most stable performance in most of the tests and is therefore the best choice for an analysis of multiple geographic regions. SRTM and NASADEM also performed well where available, whereas NASADEM, as a successor of SRTM, showed only slight improvement in comparison to SRTM. MERIT and TanDEM-X also performed well despite their lower spatial resolution.

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  • Other geomorphological characteristics can be altered due to changes in watershed delineation, such as the length of the main river, the number of segments, aspect, and slope.

    “Other geomorphological characteristics can also be altered due to changes in watershed delineation, such as the length of the main river, the number of segments, aspect, and slope [60,61].”

    From ANADEM: A Digital Terrain Model for South America (2024) · cites this paper as [61]

    The Introduction identifies slope and aspect as terrain variables derived from DEMs. It does not say that changes in watershed delineation alter those variables, main-river length, or the number of segments; the slope-and-aspect results concern DEM vertical accuracy instead. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.80)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Slope has a greater influence than aspect on the vertical accuracy of DEMs.

    “These results suggest that slope has a greater influence than aspect on the vertical accuracy of DEMs, supporting the conclusions of previous studies [61,63].”

    From ANADEM: A Digital Terrain Model for South America (2024) · cites this paper as [61]

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Metadata

Authors
Uuemaa, E., Ahi, S., Montibeller, B., Muru, M., & Kmoch, A.
Venue
Remote Sensing
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2020-10-23
Volume
12
Issue
21
Pages
3482
ISSN
2072-4292
DOI
10.3390/rs12213482
Cited by
289
References
2
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)
Funders
  • H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (795625)
  • Estonian Research Competency Council (PRG352, PUTJD829)
  • European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange)

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