Analysis and Correction of Digital
Elevation Models for Plain Areas
Cristian Guevara Ochoa, Luis Vives, Erik Zimmermann, Ignacio Masson, Luisa Fajardo, and Carlos Scioli
Abstract
Water movement modeling in plain areas requires digital
elevation models (
DEMs
) adequately representing the mor-
phological and geomorphological land patterns including
the presence of civil structures that could affect water flow
patterns. This has a direct effect on water accumulation
and water flow direction. The o
analyze, compare and improve
ment in plain areas could be pr
we evaluated the accuracy of a
consisting in 4064 points measured with a differential global
positioning system (
GPS
) in a plain area of central Buenos
Aires province. Three
DEMs
were analyzed: (1) the Advanced
Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
(
ASTER
), (2) the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (
SRTM
) and
(3) the Advanced Land Observing Satellite with the Phased
Array Type L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (
ALOS PALSAR
).
Several topographic attributes (i.e., height, surface area, land
slope, delimitation of geomorphological units, civil structures,
basin boundaries and streams network) and different interpo-
lation methods were analyzed. The results showed that both
the
SRTM
and the
ALOS PALSAR DEMs
had a ± 4.4 m root mean
square error (
RMSE
) in contrast to the
ASTER DEM
which had a
± 9 m
RMSE
. Our analysis proved that the best
DEM
represent-
ing the study area is the
SRTM
. The most suitable interpola-
tion methods applied to the
SRTM
were the inverse distance
weighting and the
ANUDEM
, whereas the spline method
displayed the lowest vertical accuracy. With the proposed
method we obtained a
DEM
for the study area with a ± 3.2 m
RMSE
, a 33% error reduction compared to the raw
DEM
.
Introduction
Earth’s surface plays a fundamental role in the modeling of
hydrological processes (Wilson and Galán 2000; Wilson 2012;
Eric
et al.
2014). Satellite technologies are currently being de-
veloped for capturing topographic information through digital
elevation models (
DEMs
). Through the use of
DEMs
, geomor-
phological (Hutchinson
et al.
2001) and hydrological prop-
erties (Jarihani
et al.
2015) can be analyzed. These include
soil moisture (Ludwig and Schneider 2006; Gao
et al.
2016),
2007; Tarekegn
et al.
2010; Gichamo
014; Wurl
et al.
2014), soil stability,
ipitation retention, channel shape, land
es
et al.
2014).
DEMs
have been used for a variety of environmental appli-
cations, such as modeling water processes. The most com-
monly used data for
DEMs
are radar and radiometric reflec-
tion data such as Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission
and Reflection Radiometer (
ASTER
) data (Ica and Hook 2002;
Pachri
et al.
2013; Carrascal
et al.
2013). There are many
examples of
DEMs
using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(
SRTM
) data (e.g., Gesch
et al.
2006; Lin
et al.
2013; Sharma
and Tiwari 2014). Likewise, other applications use Advanced
Land Observing Satellite with the Phased Array Type L-Band
Synthetic Aperture Radar (
ALOS PALSAR
) data (e.g., Pontes
et
al.
2017; Hidayat
et al.
2017).
Currently, the models that quantify surface water movements
require a better resolution. Therefore, semi-distributed and
distributed models appeared to reproduce various processes
that occur in the water balance, such as evaporation, runoff and
infiltration. According to Easton
et al.
(2008), Vaze
et al.
(2010),
and Guevara (2015), the relief represents an important aspect
for which the detailed topography adequately representing the
hydrology is needed. This is because when hydrological studies
are carried out in plain areas
DEMs
do not properly represent the
hydrological characteristics of the surface (Callow
et al.
2007).
According to Chaubey
et al.
(2005), the
DEM
resolution con-
ditions model calibration, having an effect on basin delinea-
tion and total surface area (Martz and Jong 1988), drainage
network prediction (Chen
et al.
2012), subcatchment classifi-
cation and slope.
The relationship between topography and water flow is
less clear in plain areas, where low height gradients and
depressions make surface flow tracing more complex (Gallant
and Dowling 2003). This difficulty is aggravated by the civil
structures that contribute to the topographic uncertainty in
these areas, since any structure with a height even below 1
m has a significant impact on the surface flow in terms of its
direction and quantity (Guevara 2015). On the other hand, the
water flow in plain areas does not strictly follow the topogra-
phy, especially in water excess conditions.
In plain areas,
DEMs
do not adequately represent the
channel geometry. This leads to misinterpretations of the
hydraulic factor of water transport, estimated from the
Cristian Guevara Ochoa, Luis Vives, Ignacio Masson, and
Luisa Fajardo are with the Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras
“Dr. Eduardo Jorge Usunoff”, IHLLA, República de Italia 780
C.C. 47 (B7300) Azul, Buenos Aires, Argentina
(
).
Cristian Guevara Ochoa and Erik Zimmermann are with the
Concejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas de Argentina,
CONICET, Av. Rivadavia 1917, (C1033AAJ) Ciudad Autónoma
de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Erik Zimmermann is with the Centro Universitario Rosario de
Investigaciones Hidroambientales, CURIHAM, Riobamba 245
bis (2000) Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina.
Ignacio Masson and Luisa Fajardo are with the Comisión de
Investigaciones Científicas de la provincia de Buenos Aires,
CIC, Calle 526 e/10 y 11, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Carlos Scioli is with the Centro de estudios de variabilidad
y cambio climático, CEVARCAM, Facultad de Ingeniería y
Ciencias Hídricas, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Paraje
el pozo C.C. 217, Ruta Nacional Nº 168, Km 472, Santa Fe,
Argentina.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 85, No. 3, March 2019, pp. 209–219.
0099-1112/18/209–219
© 2019 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.85.3.209
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
March 2019
209
