The methodology of catchment extraction especially from regular grid digital elevation models (DEMs) is briefly reviewed. Then an efficient algorithm, which combines vector process and traditional neighbourhood raster...The methodology of catchment extraction especially from regular grid digital elevation models (DEMs) is briefly reviewed. Then an efficient algorithm, which combines vector process and traditional neighbourhood raster process, is designed for extracting the catchments and subcatchments from depressionless DEMs. The catchment area of each river in the grid DEM data is identified and delineated, then is divided into subcatchments as required. Compared to traditional processes, this method for identifying catchments focuses on the boundaries instead of the area inside the catchments and avoids the boundary intersection phenomena. Last, the algorithm is tested with a set of DEMs of different sizes, and the result proves that the computation efficiency and accuracy are better than existent methods.展开更多
Slope is one of the crucial terrain variables in spatial analysis and land use planning, especially in the Loess Plateau area of China which is suffering from serious soil erosion. DEM based slope extracting method ha...Slope is one of the crucial terrain variables in spatial analysis and land use planning, especially in the Loess Plateau area of China which is suffering from serious soil erosion. DEM based slope extracting method has been widely accepted and applied in practice. However slope accuracy derived from this method usually does not match with its popularity. A quantitative simulation to slope data uncertainty is important not only theoretically but also necessarily to applications. This paper focuses on how resolution and terrain complexity impact on the accuracy of mean slope extracted from DEMs of different resolutions in the Loess Plateau of China. Six typical geomorphologic areas are selected as test areas, representing different terrain types from smooth to rough. Their DEMs are produced from digitizing contours of 1:10,000 scale topographic maps. Field survey results show that 5 m should be the most suitable grid size for representing slope in the Loess Plateau area. Comparative and math-simulation methodology was employed for data processing and analysis. A linear correlativity between mean slope and DEM resolution was found at all test areas, but their regression coefficients related closely with the terrain complexity of the test areas. If taking stream channel density to represent terrain complexity, mean slope error could be regressed against DEM resolution (X) and stream channel density (S) at 8 resolution levels and expressed as (0.00158+0.031S-0.0325)X-0.0045S2-0.155S+0.1625, with a R2 value of over 0.98. Practical tests also show an effective result of this model in applications. The new development methodology applied in this study should be helpful to similar researches in spatial data uncertainty investigation.展开更多
In mountainous area, spatial interpolation is the traditional method to calculate air temperature by use of observed temperature data. Due to lack of sufficient observation data in mountainous areas many precise inter...In mountainous area, spatial interpolation is the traditional method to calculate air temperature by use of observed temperature data. Due to lack of sufficient observation data in mountainous areas many precise interpolation methods could give only coarse result which could not meet the demand of precision agriculture and local climate exploration. Based on DEMs of 25 m resolution, a reversed model is constructed, with which temperature is simulated to the corresponding slope unit from the solar radiation. Taking Yaoxian county as a test area, and mean monthly temperature data as basic information sources, which are collected from 15 weather stations around Yaoxian county in Shaanxi province from the year of 1970 to 2000, a simulation for the solar radiation cell by cell is completed. By simulating solar radiation at each slope and flat cell unit, the terrain revised temperature model could be realized. A comparison between the simulated temperature and the radiation temperature from TM6 thermal infrared image shows that the terrain improved model gets a finer temperature distribution at local level. The accuracy of simulated temperature in mountainous area is higher than it is in flat area.展开更多
Shoulder lines are the most important landform demarcations for geographical analysis,soil erosion modeling and land use planning in the Loess Plateau area of China.This paper proposes an automatic,effective and accur...Shoulder lines are the most important landform demarcations for geographical analysis,soil erosion modeling and land use planning in the Loess Plateau area of China.This paper proposes an automatic,effective and accurate method of determining loess shoulder line from DEMs by integrating a hydrological D8 algorithm and a snake model.The watershed boundary line is adopted as the initial contour which evolves to identify the exact position of loess shoulder-line by the guidance of an external force of snake model from DEMs.Experiments show that the method overcomes the difficulties in both threshold selection for edge detection and the disconnecting issues in former extraction approaches.The accuracy evaluation of shoulder-line maps from the two test sites of the loess plateau area show obvious improvements in the extraction.The average contour matching distance of the new method is 12.0 m on 5 m resolution DEM,and shows improvement in the accuracy and continuity.The comparisons of accuracy evaluations of the two test sites show that the snake model method performs better in the loess plain area than in the area with high gully density.展开更多
Hydrologic data derived from digital elevation models (DEM) has been regarded as an effective method in the spatial analysis of geographical information systems (GIS). However, both DEM resolution and terrain complexi...Hydrologic data derived from digital elevation models (DEM) has been regarded as an effective method in the spatial analysis of geographical information systems (GIS). However, both DEM resolution and terrain complexity has impacts on the accuracy of hydrologic derivatives. In this study, a multi-resolution and multi-relief comparative approach was used as a major methodology to investigate the accuracy of hydrologic data derived from DEMs. The experiment reveals that DEM terrain representation error affects the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives (drainage networks and watershed etc.). Coarser DEM resolutions can usually cause worse results. However, uncertain result commonly exists in this calculation. The derivative errors can be found closely related with DEM vertical resolution and terrain roughness. DEM vertical resolution can be found closely related with the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives, especially in the smooth plain area. If the mean slope is less than 4 degrees, the derived hydrologic data are usually unreliable. This result may be helpful in estimating the accuracy of the hydrologic derivatives and determining the DEM resolution that is appropriate to the accuracy requirement of a particular user. By applying a threshold value to subset the cells of a higher accumulation flow, a stream network of a specific network density can be extracted. Some very important geomorphologic characteristics, e.g., shallow and deep gullies, can be separately extracted by means of adjusting the threshold value. However, such a flow accumulation- based processing method can not correctly derive those streams that pass through the working area because it is hard to accumulate enough flow direction values to express the stream channels at the stream's entrance area. Consequently, errors will definitely occur at the stream抯 entrance area. In addition, erroneous derivatives can also be found in deriving some particular rivers, e.g., perched (hanging up) rivers, anastomosing rivers and braided rivers. Therefore, more work should be done to develop and perfect the algorithms.展开更多
The Fenglin and Fengcong landform units are considered to be an important representation for defining the degree of development of Karst landforms. However, these terrain features have been proven difficult to delinea...The Fenglin and Fengcong landform units are considered to be an important representation for defining the degree of development of Karst landforms. However, these terrain features have been proven difficult to delineate and extract automatically because of their complex morphology. In this paper, a new method for identifying the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units is proposed. This method consists of two steps:(1) terrain openness calculation and(2) toe line extraction. The proposed method is applied and validated in the Karst case area of Guilin by using ASTER GDEM with one arc-second resolution. The openness of both the positive and negative terrain and a threshold were used to extract toe lines for segmenting depressions and pinnacles in Fenglin and Fengcong landforms. A comparison between the extracted Fenglin and Fengcong landform units and their real units from high resolution images wascarried out to evaluate the capability of the proposed method. Results show the proposed method can effectively extract the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units, and has an overall accuracy of 93.28%. The proposed method is simple and easy to implement and is expected to play an important role in the automatic extraction of similar landform units in the Karst area.展开更多
Watershed modelling tools like ArcSWAT, an ArcGIS extension of Soil and Water Assessment tool (SWAT), are useful to watershed managers in many ways. One particular use is analyzing model outputs for decision making re...Watershed modelling tools like ArcSWAT, an ArcGIS extension of Soil and Water Assessment tool (SWAT), are useful to watershed managers in many ways. One particular use is analyzing model outputs for decision making related to waterway restoration and mitigation, which is often undertaken to improve water quality in streams. The present study evaluates the use of digital elevation model (DEM) at 10 meter, 30 meter, and 100 meter pixel size on non-point runoff predictions for three sub-watersheds in Raritan River Basin in New Jersey. These three watersheds include: Bound Brook, Lamington River, and Lawrence Brook watersheds. ArcSWAT is utilized to investigate the difference due to DEM variation in predicting monthly estimates of pollutant loads including ammonium (NH4), nitrite (NO2) and sediment transported with water out of a watershed. Using land use/cover, slope and soil data for 2012, monthly pollutant loads are calculated for each sub-basin in the watershed over a 10-year simulation period (2012-2022) in ArcSWAT. Overall statistical and spatial results show that ArcSWAT results are sensitive to changes in DEM pixel size for watershed modeling. The results show that total sum of monthly runoffs including NH4, NO2 and sediment differ among the three different DEMs. Moreover, the spatial pattern of input (in sub-catchments) also changes among the three DEMs for most watersheds. This indicates that watershed managers need to supplement model predictions with field measurements before making substantial investments in stream restoration programs.展开更多
In this study, a new method for quantitative and efficient measurement for the ground surface movement was developed. The feature of this technique is to identify geomorphic characteristics by image matching analysis,...In this study, a new method for quantitative and efficient measurement for the ground surface movement was developed. The feature of this technique is to identify geomorphic characteristics by image matching analysis, using the intelligent images made from high resolution DEM(Digital Elevation Model). This method is useful to extract the small ground displacement where the surface shape was not intensely deformed.展开更多
This paper describes a geographic information system(GIS)-based method for observing changes in topography caused by the initiation, transport, and deposition of debris flows using highresolution light detection and r...This paper describes a geographic information system(GIS)-based method for observing changes in topography caused by the initiation, transport, and deposition of debris flows using highresolution light detection and ranging(LiDAR) digital elevation models(DEMs) obtained before and after the debris flow events. The paper also describes a method for estimating the volume of debris flows using the differences between the LiDAR DEMs. The relative and absolute positioning accuracies of the LiDAR DEMs were evaluated using a real-time precise global navigation satellite system(GNSS) positioning method. In addition, longitudinal and cross-sectional profiles of the study area were constructed to determine the topographic changes caused by the debris flows. The volume of the debris flows was estimated based on the difference between the LiDAR DEMs. The accuracies of the relative and absolute positioning of the two LiDAR DEMs were determined to be ±10 cm and ±11 cm RMSE, respectively, which demonstrates the efficiency of the method for determining topographic changes at an scale equivalent to that of field investigations. Based on the topographic changes, the volume of the debris flows in the study area was estimated to be 3747 m3, which is comparable with the volume estimated based on the data from field investigations.展开更多
Planation surface, a surface that is almost flat, is a kind of low-relief landforms. Planation surface is the consequence of the denudation and planation processes under a tectonic stable condition. The quantitative e...Planation surface, a surface that is almost flat, is a kind of low-relief landforms. Planation surface is the consequence of the denudation and planation processes under a tectonic stable condition. The quantitative expression of the characteristics of planation surface plays a key role in reconstructing and describing the evolutionary process of landforms. In this study, Landform Planation Index(LPI), a new terrain derivative, was proposed to quantify the characteristics of planation surface. The LPIs were calculated based on the summit surfaces formed according to the clustering results of peaks. Ten typical areas in the Ordos Platform located in the central part of the Loess Plateau of China are chosen as the test areas for investigating their planation characteristics with the LPI. The experimental results indicate that the LPI can be effectively used to quantify the characteristics of planation surfaces. In addition, the LPI can be further used to depict the patterns of spatial differentiation in the Ordos Platform. Although the present Ordos Platform area is full of the high-density gullies, its planation characteristics is found to be well preserved. Furthermore, the characteristics of the planation surfaces can also reflect the original morphology of the Ordos Platform before the loess dusts deposition process evolved in this area. The statistical results of the LPI show that there is a gradually increasing tendency along with the increasing of slope gradient of summit surface. It indicates that the characteristics of planation surfaces vary among test areas with different landforms. These findings help to deepen the understanding of planation characteristics of the loess landform and its underlying paleotopography. Results of this study can be also served as an important theoretical reference value for revealing the evolutionary process of loess landform.展开更多
Rising sea levels due to global warming and climate change impact may prove a disaster for small islands. Accurate DEM (digital elevation model) can help to understand SLR (sea level rise) impact, coastal zones fl...Rising sea levels due to global warming and climate change impact may prove a disaster for small islands. Accurate DEM (digital elevation model) can help to understand SLR (sea level rise) impact, coastal zones flooding risks assessment and hydrological attributes modeling and extraction. Currently, DEMs are available from several different sources using active and passive remote sensing systems. This research compares absolute surface heights accuracies retrieved from three independent DEMs datasets. The Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM-V4.1) and the Advanced Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER-V2.1) with 30-m pixel size, and a DEM-5 of 5-m spatial resolution generated from high topographic contour lines map at scale of 1:5,000 using simple Kriging interpolation method. Moreover, topographic attributes (slope and aspect) have been retrieved and compared. For the elevations validation purposes, a dataset of 400 GCPs uniformly distributed over the study site were used. These were measured using a DGPS assuring ± 1 and ± 2 cm accuracies, respectively, for planimerry and altimetry. The obtained results show that globally the landscape scale plays an important role in the selection of the DEM pixel size, which must reflect the real topographic attributes. Indeed, the derived DEM-5 from high topographic contours map (1:5,000) using simple Kriging exhibit the best accuracy of ±0.65 m which is less than the tolerance or the total error (±0.78 m) calculated based on errors sources propagation. Then, the results show an accuracy of ± 3.00 m for SRTM-V4.1 which is less than the absolute vertical height accuracy (±5.6 m) advocated by NASA for African continent and Middle-East regions. As well, the achieved ASTER accuracy was ± 8.40 m compared to the estimated error (±17.01 m) by USGS and JAXA. Obviously, high spatial resolution and accurate DEM-5 is a crucial requirement to simulate and evaluate costal zones inundation under different SLR and storm flow scenarios for small islands. Decidedly, the elevation of small islands with topographic features not higher than 134 m can be estimated using SRTM-V4.1 with relatively acceptable accuracy. Whereas, this DEM is not significantly consistent for accurate SLR scenarios simulations. Without doubt, ASTER-V2.1 DEM was an excellent alternative compared to SRTM with 90-m pixel size, but actually with SRTM-V4.1 full resolution (30-m) ASTER-V2.1 will likely see its limited uses in geosciences applications. Indeed, ASTER is not providing accurate information to simulate the impact of SLR scenarios on small islands.展开更多
Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is one of the important parameters for soil erosion assessment. Notable uncertainties are observed in this study while using three high resolution open source DEMs. The Revised Universa...Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is one of the important parameters for soil erosion assessment. Notable uncertainties are observed in this study while using three high resolution open source DEMs. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model has been applied to analysis the assessment of soil erosion uncertainty using open source DEMs (SRTM, ASTER and CARTOSAT) and their increasing grid space (pixel size) from the actual. The study area is a part of the Narmada river basin in Madhya Pradesh state, which is located in the central part of India and the area covered 20,558 km2. The actual resolution of DEMs is 30 m and their increasing grid spaces are taken as 90, 150, 210, 270 and 330 m for this study. Vertical accuracy of DEMs has been assessed using actual heights of the sample points that have been taken considering planimetric survey based map (toposheet). Elevations of DEMs are converted to the same vertical datum from WGS 84 to MSL (Mean Sea Level), before the accuracy assessment and modelling. Results indicate that the accuracy of the SRTM DEM with the RMSE of 13.31, 14.51, and 18.19 m in 30, 150 and 330 m resolution respectively, is better than the ASTER and the CARTOSAT DEMs. When the grid space of the DEMs increases, the accuracy of the elevation and calculated soil erosion decreases. This study presents a potential uncertainty introduced by open source high resolution DEMs in the accuracy of the soil erosion assessment models. The research provides an analysis of errors in selecting DEMs using the original and increased grid space for soil erosion modelling.展开更多
As an important geomorphological divide in the hilly Loess Plateau, valley boundary plays a pivotal role in the construction of distributed models for studying the processes and mechanism of soil erosion, sediment tra...As an important geomorphological divide in the hilly Loess Plateau, valley boundary plays a pivotal role in the construction of distributed models for studying the processes and mechanism of soil erosion, sediment transfer and runoffs within a watershed. In the past, this boundary manually interpreted from large scale maps and aerial photographs. In this paper, the authors first present a simple and practical definition for topographic structures unique to the highly dissected topography in the hilly Loess Plateau in DEMs; then define the valley boundary cells in a DEM with the following features: 1) they are most likely located on a concave slope, 2) these cells have the sharpest transition in slope, 3) those cells on the downward side of the valley boundary should have a slope gradient larger than 20° ,4) as the boundary of the entire valley in a basin valley boundary must be continuous; then devise an algorithm to automatically delineate valley boundary from DEMs and implement it in a computer. This algorithm was applied to detect drainage networks and the valley boundary in the Wangjiagou basin in the hilly loess area of Lishi County, Shanxi Province, China from a 10 m DEM. The extracted results are highly comparable to those manually interpreted from aerial photographs.展开更多
To extract the high-quality DEM in complicated mountain areas,a DEM fusion method for ascending and descending orbit StereoSAR DEMs considering Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)echo intensity is proposed.After the analysi...To extract the high-quality DEM in complicated mountain areas,a DEM fusion method for ascending and descending orbit StereoSAR DEMs considering Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)echo intensity is proposed.After the analysis for the influence of terrain features and SAR side-looking imaging characteristics on radar echo intensity and DEM accuracy,four Terras AR-X images with the stripmap mode and the 3 m spatial resolution covering a certain area of Maoxian County,Sichuan Province,China,was selected as the experimental area.StereoSAR technology was used to extract the ascending orbit StereoSAR DEM and the descending orbit StereoSAR DEM,respectively,and the corresponding radar echo intensity map was calculated.Then,while comparing the radar echo intensity corresponding to the same point position,DEM fusion was carried out,and the accuracy of DEM before and after the fusion was analyzed with the ground points measured by GNSS-RTK as reference data.Finally,a high-quality DEM with a 3 m spatial resolution in the experimental area was obtained.The DEM accuracy was improved on all slopes,and the mean absolute deviation(MAD)improved to 4.798 m,the standard deviation(SD)improved to 6.087 m and the LE90 improved to 40.48 m.The experimental results indicate that the fusion method of highresolution ascending and descending orbit StereoSAR DEMs considering SAR echo intensity can effectively extract DEM with high accuracy and reliability,which can provide technical support for obtaining highquality terrain information in similar areas.展开更多
As human activities increase,artificially modified terrain is increasingly widely distributed in road,hydrological,and urban construction.Artificially modified terrain plays an important role in protecting from geolog...As human activities increase,artificially modified terrain is increasingly widely distributed in road,hydrological,and urban construction.Artificially modified terrain plays an important role in protecting from geological disasters and in the planning and design of urban landscapes.Compared with natural slopes,artificial slopes have obvious morphological characteristics.Traditional modeling methods are no longer suitable for digital elevation model(DEM)modeling of artificial slopes because they often seriously distort the DEM results.In this paper,from the perspective of morphological characteristics,artificial slopes are divided into two types,namely,regular slopes and irregular slopes,based on whether the top and bottom lines of the artificial slope are parallel.Then,according to the morphological characteristics of the two types of slopes,the following DEM construction methods are designed:the first method(perpendicular+inverse distance weighted)is suitable for regular slopes,and the second method(perpendicular+high-accuracy surface modeling)is suitable for irregular slopes.Finally,a DEM construction test is carried out using the artificial slopes in the study area.The results show that for the regular and irregular slopes in the study area,the construction method proposed in this paper has significant advantages in morphological accuracy over the traditional method(triangulated irregular network),and the elevation accuracy method is also superior to the traditional method(using this method,the mean error and standard deviation error of the regular slope DEM are 0.08 m and 0.13 m,respectively,and those of the irregular slope DEM are 0.08 m and 0.06 m).In addition,the top lines and bottom lines can be included in the DEM construction of the background area after processing the elevation information of the boundary line to realize a smooth transition in the boundary between the artificial slope and the background area.展开更多
文摘The methodology of catchment extraction especially from regular grid digital elevation models (DEMs) is briefly reviewed. Then an efficient algorithm, which combines vector process and traditional neighbourhood raster process, is designed for extracting the catchments and subcatchments from depressionless DEMs. The catchment area of each river in the grid DEM data is identified and delineated, then is divided into subcatchments as required. Compared to traditional processes, this method for identifying catchments focuses on the boundaries instead of the area inside the catchments and avoids the boundary intersection phenomena. Last, the algorithm is tested with a set of DEMs of different sizes, and the result proves that the computation efficiency and accuracy are better than existent methods.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China,No.40271089China Education Ministry Science and Technique Key Research Project,No.0111High-visiting Scholoar Fund of the Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics,Ministry of Education,China
文摘Slope is one of the crucial terrain variables in spatial analysis and land use planning, especially in the Loess Plateau area of China which is suffering from serious soil erosion. DEM based slope extracting method has been widely accepted and applied in practice. However slope accuracy derived from this method usually does not match with its popularity. A quantitative simulation to slope data uncertainty is important not only theoretically but also necessarily to applications. This paper focuses on how resolution and terrain complexity impact on the accuracy of mean slope extracted from DEMs of different resolutions in the Loess Plateau of China. Six typical geomorphologic areas are selected as test areas, representing different terrain types from smooth to rough. Their DEMs are produced from digitizing contours of 1:10,000 scale topographic maps. Field survey results show that 5 m should be the most suitable grid size for representing slope in the Loess Plateau area. Comparative and math-simulation methodology was employed for data processing and analysis. A linear correlativity between mean slope and DEM resolution was found at all test areas, but their regression coefficients related closely with the terrain complexity of the test areas. If taking stream channel density to represent terrain complexity, mean slope error could be regressed against DEM resolution (X) and stream channel density (S) at 8 resolution levels and expressed as (0.00158+0.031S-0.0325)X-0.0045S2-0.155S+0.1625, with a R2 value of over 0.98. Practical tests also show an effective result of this model in applications. The new development methodology applied in this study should be helpful to similar researches in spatial data uncertainty investigation.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40671148, No.40571120 Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education, No.20050319006 Chair Professor Foundation of Nanjing Normal University
文摘In mountainous area, spatial interpolation is the traditional method to calculate air temperature by use of observed temperature data. Due to lack of sufficient observation data in mountainous areas many precise interpolation methods could give only coarse result which could not meet the demand of precision agriculture and local climate exploration. Based on DEMs of 25 m resolution, a reversed model is constructed, with which temperature is simulated to the corresponding slope unit from the solar radiation. Taking Yaoxian county as a test area, and mean monthly temperature data as basic information sources, which are collected from 15 weather stations around Yaoxian county in Shaanxi province from the year of 1970 to 2000, a simulation for the solar radiation cell by cell is completed. By simulating solar radiation at each slope and flat cell unit, the terrain revised temperature model could be realized. A comparison between the simulated temperature and the radiation temperature from TM6 thermal infrared image shows that the terrain improved model gets a finer temperature distribution at local level. The accuracy of simulated temperature in mountainous area is higher than it is in flat area.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40930531, 41001294, 41301422)the Open Project Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System in China (Grant No. 2010KF0002SA)
文摘Shoulder lines are the most important landform demarcations for geographical analysis,soil erosion modeling and land use planning in the Loess Plateau area of China.This paper proposes an automatic,effective and accurate method of determining loess shoulder line from DEMs by integrating a hydrological D8 algorithm and a snake model.The watershed boundary line is adopted as the initial contour which evolves to identify the exact position of loess shoulder-line by the guidance of an external force of snake model from DEMs.Experiments show that the method overcomes the difficulties in both threshold selection for edge detection and the disconnecting issues in former extraction approaches.The accuracy evaluation of shoulder-line maps from the two test sites of the loess plateau area show obvious improvements in the extraction.The average contour matching distance of the new method is 12.0 m on 5 m resolution DEM,and shows improvement in the accuracy and continuity.The comparisons of accuracy evaluations of the two test sites show that the snake model method performs better in the loess plain area than in the area with high gully density.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China No. 49971065 Open Research Fund Program of LIESMARS+3 种基金 No. WKL 99-0302 High-visiting Scholar Fund of the Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics Ministry of Education China
文摘Hydrologic data derived from digital elevation models (DEM) has been regarded as an effective method in the spatial analysis of geographical information systems (GIS). However, both DEM resolution and terrain complexity has impacts on the accuracy of hydrologic derivatives. In this study, a multi-resolution and multi-relief comparative approach was used as a major methodology to investigate the accuracy of hydrologic data derived from DEMs. The experiment reveals that DEM terrain representation error affects the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives (drainage networks and watershed etc.). Coarser DEM resolutions can usually cause worse results. However, uncertain result commonly exists in this calculation. The derivative errors can be found closely related with DEM vertical resolution and terrain roughness. DEM vertical resolution can be found closely related with the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives, especially in the smooth plain area. If the mean slope is less than 4 degrees, the derived hydrologic data are usually unreliable. This result may be helpful in estimating the accuracy of the hydrologic derivatives and determining the DEM resolution that is appropriate to the accuracy requirement of a particular user. By applying a threshold value to subset the cells of a higher accumulation flow, a stream network of a specific network density can be extracted. Some very important geomorphologic characteristics, e.g., shallow and deep gullies, can be separately extracted by means of adjusting the threshold value. However, such a flow accumulation- based processing method can not correctly derive those streams that pass through the working area because it is hard to accumulate enough flow direction values to express the stream channels at the stream's entrance area. Consequently, errors will definitely occur at the stream抯 entrance area. In addition, erroneous derivatives can also be found in deriving some particular rivers, e.g., perched (hanging up) rivers, anastomosing rivers and braided rivers. Therefore, more work should be done to develop and perfect the algorithms.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 41601411, 41671389, 41571398, 41701449) Open Fund of State Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University (Grant No. 17S02) A Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions-PAPD (Grant No. 164320H101)
文摘The Fenglin and Fengcong landform units are considered to be an important representation for defining the degree of development of Karst landforms. However, these terrain features have been proven difficult to delineate and extract automatically because of their complex morphology. In this paper, a new method for identifying the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units is proposed. This method consists of two steps:(1) terrain openness calculation and(2) toe line extraction. The proposed method is applied and validated in the Karst case area of Guilin by using ASTER GDEM with one arc-second resolution. The openness of both the positive and negative terrain and a threshold were used to extract toe lines for segmenting depressions and pinnacles in Fenglin and Fengcong landforms. A comparison between the extracted Fenglin and Fengcong landform units and their real units from high resolution images wascarried out to evaluate the capability of the proposed method. Results show the proposed method can effectively extract the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units, and has an overall accuracy of 93.28%. The proposed method is simple and easy to implement and is expected to play an important role in the automatic extraction of similar landform units in the Karst area.
文摘Watershed modelling tools like ArcSWAT, an ArcGIS extension of Soil and Water Assessment tool (SWAT), are useful to watershed managers in many ways. One particular use is analyzing model outputs for decision making related to waterway restoration and mitigation, which is often undertaken to improve water quality in streams. The present study evaluates the use of digital elevation model (DEM) at 10 meter, 30 meter, and 100 meter pixel size on non-point runoff predictions for three sub-watersheds in Raritan River Basin in New Jersey. These three watersheds include: Bound Brook, Lamington River, and Lawrence Brook watersheds. ArcSWAT is utilized to investigate the difference due to DEM variation in predicting monthly estimates of pollutant loads including ammonium (NH4), nitrite (NO2) and sediment transported with water out of a watershed. Using land use/cover, slope and soil data for 2012, monthly pollutant loads are calculated for each sub-basin in the watershed over a 10-year simulation period (2012-2022) in ArcSWAT. Overall statistical and spatial results show that ArcSWAT results are sensitive to changes in DEM pixel size for watershed modeling. The results show that total sum of monthly runoffs including NH4, NO2 and sediment differ among the three different DEMs. Moreover, the spatial pattern of input (in sub-catchments) also changes among the three DEMs for most watersheds. This indicates that watershed managers need to supplement model predictions with field measurements before making substantial investments in stream restoration programs.
文摘In this study, a new method for quantitative and efficient measurement for the ground surface movement was developed. The feature of this technique is to identify geomorphic characteristics by image matching analysis, using the intelligent images made from high resolution DEM(Digital Elevation Model). This method is useful to extract the small ground displacement where the surface shape was not intensely deformed.
基金supported by the Public Welfare & Safety Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (Grant No. 2012M3A2A1050979)
文摘This paper describes a geographic information system(GIS)-based method for observing changes in topography caused by the initiation, transport, and deposition of debris flows using highresolution light detection and ranging(LiDAR) digital elevation models(DEMs) obtained before and after the debris flow events. The paper also describes a method for estimating the volume of debris flows using the differences between the LiDAR DEMs. The relative and absolute positioning accuracies of the LiDAR DEMs were evaluated using a real-time precise global navigation satellite system(GNSS) positioning method. In addition, longitudinal and cross-sectional profiles of the study area were constructed to determine the topographic changes caused by the debris flows. The volume of the debris flows was estimated based on the difference between the LiDAR DEMs. The accuracies of the relative and absolute positioning of the two LiDAR DEMs were determined to be ±10 cm and ±11 cm RMSE, respectively, which demonstrates the efficiency of the method for determining topographic changes at an scale equivalent to that of field investigations. Based on the topographic changes, the volume of the debris flows in the study area was estimated to be 3747 m3, which is comparable with the volume estimated based on the data from field investigations.
基金Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.41201464,41471316)Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions(No.164320H101)
文摘Planation surface, a surface that is almost flat, is a kind of low-relief landforms. Planation surface is the consequence of the denudation and planation processes under a tectonic stable condition. The quantitative expression of the characteristics of planation surface plays a key role in reconstructing and describing the evolutionary process of landforms. In this study, Landform Planation Index(LPI), a new terrain derivative, was proposed to quantify the characteristics of planation surface. The LPIs were calculated based on the summit surfaces formed according to the clustering results of peaks. Ten typical areas in the Ordos Platform located in the central part of the Loess Plateau of China are chosen as the test areas for investigating their planation characteristics with the LPI. The experimental results indicate that the LPI can be effectively used to quantify the characteristics of planation surfaces. In addition, the LPI can be further used to depict the patterns of spatial differentiation in the Ordos Platform. Although the present Ordos Platform area is full of the high-density gullies, its planation characteristics is found to be well preserved. Furthermore, the characteristics of the planation surfaces can also reflect the original morphology of the Ordos Platform before the loess dusts deposition process evolved in this area. The statistical results of the LPI show that there is a gradually increasing tendency along with the increasing of slope gradient of summit surface. It indicates that the characteristics of planation surfaces vary among test areas with different landforms. These findings help to deepen the understanding of planation characteristics of the loess landform and its underlying paleotopography. Results of this study can be also served as an important theoretical reference value for revealing the evolutionary process of loess landform.
文摘Rising sea levels due to global warming and climate change impact may prove a disaster for small islands. Accurate DEM (digital elevation model) can help to understand SLR (sea level rise) impact, coastal zones flooding risks assessment and hydrological attributes modeling and extraction. Currently, DEMs are available from several different sources using active and passive remote sensing systems. This research compares absolute surface heights accuracies retrieved from three independent DEMs datasets. The Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM-V4.1) and the Advanced Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER-V2.1) with 30-m pixel size, and a DEM-5 of 5-m spatial resolution generated from high topographic contour lines map at scale of 1:5,000 using simple Kriging interpolation method. Moreover, topographic attributes (slope and aspect) have been retrieved and compared. For the elevations validation purposes, a dataset of 400 GCPs uniformly distributed over the study site were used. These were measured using a DGPS assuring ± 1 and ± 2 cm accuracies, respectively, for planimerry and altimetry. The obtained results show that globally the landscape scale plays an important role in the selection of the DEM pixel size, which must reflect the real topographic attributes. Indeed, the derived DEM-5 from high topographic contours map (1:5,000) using simple Kriging exhibit the best accuracy of ±0.65 m which is less than the tolerance or the total error (±0.78 m) calculated based on errors sources propagation. Then, the results show an accuracy of ± 3.00 m for SRTM-V4.1 which is less than the absolute vertical height accuracy (±5.6 m) advocated by NASA for African continent and Middle-East regions. As well, the achieved ASTER accuracy was ± 8.40 m compared to the estimated error (±17.01 m) by USGS and JAXA. Obviously, high spatial resolution and accurate DEM-5 is a crucial requirement to simulate and evaluate costal zones inundation under different SLR and storm flow scenarios for small islands. Decidedly, the elevation of small islands with topographic features not higher than 134 m can be estimated using SRTM-V4.1 with relatively acceptable accuracy. Whereas, this DEM is not significantly consistent for accurate SLR scenarios simulations. Without doubt, ASTER-V2.1 DEM was an excellent alternative compared to SRTM with 90-m pixel size, but actually with SRTM-V4.1 full resolution (30-m) ASTER-V2.1 will likely see its limited uses in geosciences applications. Indeed, ASTER is not providing accurate information to simulate the impact of SLR scenarios on small islands.
基金the Council of Scientific&Industrial Research (CSIR)
文摘Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is one of the important parameters for soil erosion assessment. Notable uncertainties are observed in this study while using three high resolution open source DEMs. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model has been applied to analysis the assessment of soil erosion uncertainty using open source DEMs (SRTM, ASTER and CARTOSAT) and their increasing grid space (pixel size) from the actual. The study area is a part of the Narmada river basin in Madhya Pradesh state, which is located in the central part of India and the area covered 20,558 km2. The actual resolution of DEMs is 30 m and their increasing grid spaces are taken as 90, 150, 210, 270 and 330 m for this study. Vertical accuracy of DEMs has been assessed using actual heights of the sample points that have been taken considering planimetric survey based map (toposheet). Elevations of DEMs are converted to the same vertical datum from WGS 84 to MSL (Mean Sea Level), before the accuracy assessment and modelling. Results indicate that the accuracy of the SRTM DEM with the RMSE of 13.31, 14.51, and 18.19 m in 30, 150 and 330 m resolution respectively, is better than the ASTER and the CARTOSAT DEMs. When the grid space of the DEMs increases, the accuracy of the elevation and calculated soil erosion decreases. This study presents a potential uncertainty introduced by open source high resolution DEMs in the accuracy of the soil erosion assessment models. The research provides an analysis of errors in selecting DEMs using the original and increased grid space for soil erosion modelling.
文摘As an important geomorphological divide in the hilly Loess Plateau, valley boundary plays a pivotal role in the construction of distributed models for studying the processes and mechanism of soil erosion, sediment transfer and runoffs within a watershed. In the past, this boundary manually interpreted from large scale maps and aerial photographs. In this paper, the authors first present a simple and practical definition for topographic structures unique to the highly dissected topography in the hilly Loess Plateau in DEMs; then define the valley boundary cells in a DEM with the following features: 1) they are most likely located on a concave slope, 2) these cells have the sharpest transition in slope, 3) those cells on the downward side of the valley boundary should have a slope gradient larger than 20° ,4) as the boundary of the entire valley in a basin valley boundary must be continuous; then devise an algorithm to automatically delineate valley boundary from DEMs and implement it in a computer. This algorithm was applied to detect drainage networks and the valley boundary in the Wangjiagou basin in the hilly loess area of Lishi County, Shanxi Province, China from a 10 m DEM. The extracted results are highly comparable to those manually interpreted from aerial photographs.
基金supported by Study on Early Identification of Landslide Hazards based on Highresolution SAR Image[KJ-2018-13]。
文摘To extract the high-quality DEM in complicated mountain areas,a DEM fusion method for ascending and descending orbit StereoSAR DEMs considering Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)echo intensity is proposed.After the analysis for the influence of terrain features and SAR side-looking imaging characteristics on radar echo intensity and DEM accuracy,four Terras AR-X images with the stripmap mode and the 3 m spatial resolution covering a certain area of Maoxian County,Sichuan Province,China,was selected as the experimental area.StereoSAR technology was used to extract the ascending orbit StereoSAR DEM and the descending orbit StereoSAR DEM,respectively,and the corresponding radar echo intensity map was calculated.Then,while comparing the radar echo intensity corresponding to the same point position,DEM fusion was carried out,and the accuracy of DEM before and after the fusion was analyzed with the ground points measured by GNSS-RTK as reference data.Finally,a high-quality DEM with a 3 m spatial resolution in the experimental area was obtained.The DEM accuracy was improved on all slopes,and the mean absolute deviation(MAD)improved to 4.798 m,the standard deviation(SD)improved to 6.087 m and the LE90 improved to 40.48 m.The experimental results indicate that the fusion method of highresolution ascending and descending orbit StereoSAR DEMs considering SAR echo intensity can effectively extract DEM with high accuracy and reliability,which can provide technical support for obtaining highquality terrain information in similar areas.
基金supported by Key Project of Natural Science Research of Anhui Provincial Department of Education(No.KJ2020A0722,No.KJ2020A0721,No.KJ2020A0705)Major Project of Natural Science Research of Anhui Provincial Department of Education(No.KJ2021ZD0130)+3 种基金General Project of Natural Science Research of Anhui Provincial Department of Education(No.KJ2020B01,No.KJ2020B02)The guiding plan project of Chuzhou science and Technology Bureau(No.2021ZD008)Grant from State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System in 2018the Key Project of Research and Development in Chuzhou Science and Technology Program(No.2020ZG016)。
文摘As human activities increase,artificially modified terrain is increasingly widely distributed in road,hydrological,and urban construction.Artificially modified terrain plays an important role in protecting from geological disasters and in the planning and design of urban landscapes.Compared with natural slopes,artificial slopes have obvious morphological characteristics.Traditional modeling methods are no longer suitable for digital elevation model(DEM)modeling of artificial slopes because they often seriously distort the DEM results.In this paper,from the perspective of morphological characteristics,artificial slopes are divided into two types,namely,regular slopes and irregular slopes,based on whether the top and bottom lines of the artificial slope are parallel.Then,according to the morphological characteristics of the two types of slopes,the following DEM construction methods are designed:the first method(perpendicular+inverse distance weighted)is suitable for regular slopes,and the second method(perpendicular+high-accuracy surface modeling)is suitable for irregular slopes.Finally,a DEM construction test is carried out using the artificial slopes in the study area.The results show that for the regular and irregular slopes in the study area,the construction method proposed in this paper has significant advantages in morphological accuracy over the traditional method(triangulated irregular network),and the elevation accuracy method is also superior to the traditional method(using this method,the mean error and standard deviation error of the regular slope DEM are 0.08 m and 0.13 m,respectively,and those of the irregular slope DEM are 0.08 m and 0.06 m).In addition,the top lines and bottom lines can be included in the DEM construction of the background area after processing the elevation information of the boundary line to realize a smooth transition in the boundary between the artificial slope and the background area.