Errors in digital elevation models derived from airborne geophysical data  


Authors / CoAuthors

Richardson, L.M.

Abstract

A digital elevation model (DEM) is a digital representation of the height of the terrain usually interpolated onto a regularly spaced grid. Traditionally, DEMs have been estimated from ground surveys, digitised topographic maps, satellite (SPOT) images and aerial photography. Since the advent of the Global Positioning System (GPS) for aircraft navigation, DEMs can be derived from positional and aircraft radar altimeter data recorded on airborne geophysical surveys. A DEM is useful in any situation where knowledge of the height, slope and aspect of the ground is important. DEMs are widely used in the following landscape studies - botanical, geochemical, environmental, forest, soil, geological, climatological, geophysical, glaciological and natural hazard (eg landslide). Florinsky (1988) gives a comprehensive list of applications for DEMs. These include: - stream flow modelling - landscape analysis - land use and soil mapping - geological/geophysical mapping - road design and other engineering projects Although DEMs have been derived from airborne geophysical survey data for several years, there is little information available on the precision and accuracy of these models. The purpose of this paper is to review the procedure for generating an airborne geophysical survey DEM and to investigate the sources and amplitudes of errors in these models.

Product Type

document

eCat Id

33888

Contact for the resource

  Custodian

MNHD  

  Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)  

  Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)  
Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia

Keywords

  • GA PublicationRecord
( Theme )
  • DEM
( Theme )
  • geophysics
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
  • Earth Sciences
  • Published_External

Publication Date

2000-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - license

Use - license

Status

Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Record 2000/037

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

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