Arctic High-Resolution Elevation Models: Accuracy in Sloped and Vegetated Terrain
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 144, Issue 1
Abstract
New high-resolution elevation models for Alaska have recently been released; they were created using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR) and automated matching of high-resolution optical satellite stereo imagery (OSSI). These products promise to fill a void in available digital elevation models (DEMs) for the Arctic. However, the effective use of these models requires knowledge of their expected accuracy, and to date, a detailed analysis of these models in remote Arctic locations has not been undertaken. Expected accuracy is necessary to gauge the uncertainty of any scientific conclusions based upon analysis of these DEM sources. To that end, both aforementioned DEM techniques were compared to airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) in the area surrounding Sitka, Alaska. It was found that both the IFSAR and OSSI DEMs provide vertical accuracy at the 2–4-m level (1 σ) in flat and open terrain but perform significantly worse in areas of vegetation cover with standard deviations increasing to ∼7–12 m. The DEM errors were found to have a strong positive correlation with vegetation height, and the overall error pattern suggests that neither OSSI nor IFSAR accurately model either the ground or top of the tree canopy, instead representing a surface between the canopy and topographic elevation.
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Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Cold Regions Research and the Engineering Laboratory Remote Sensing/GIS Center of Expertise. The author would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments and criticisms helped to improve the final manuscript.
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Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 144 • Issue 1 • February 2018
Copyright
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 7, 2017
Accepted: Sep 7, 2017
Published online: Oct 25, 2017
Published in print: Feb 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Mar 25, 2018
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