New Progress in the Investigation of Spatial Distribution for SRTM DEM Errors

Abstract:

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is an international research effort that obtains digital elevation models (DEM) over 80% of the Earths land surface. SRTM DEM plays a key role in geosciences and GIS. In order to investigate the vertical accuracy of SRTM DEM, we evaluated the root mean square error (RMSE) of height between SRTM DEM and 1:50,000 scale topographic map within north China, and extracted the related topographic factors including height, slope and aspect. Then, we analyzed the relationship between the topographic factors and SRTM DEM errors. The results show that the SRTM DEM errors not only have a tendency to get larger in areas of large slope and complex topography, but also have a strong correlation with aspect. Furthermore, this correlation appears increasingly strong with great slope.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 726-731)
• Pages: 4694-4699
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.726-731.4694
• Online since: August 2013
• Authors: Zu Rui Ao, Zhan Qiang Chang*, Xiao Meng Liu, Qi Yao
• Keywords: Aspect, Root Mean Square Error, Slope, Spatial Distribution, SRTM

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