Suitability of spaceborne digital elevation models of different scales in topographic analysis: an example from Kerala, India

Digital elevation model (DEM), deriving conventionally from contour data of topographic maps, provides sufficient information regarding the continuously varying topographic surface of the Earth. Though spaceborne DEMs are increasingly being used in earth-environmental-applications, suitability of various freely available spaceborne DEMs [e.g., advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection (ASTER), shuttle radar topography mapping mission (SRTM), global multi-resolution terrain elevation data (GMTED)] for topographic and geomorphometric analyzes in tropical regions is yet to be ascertained. In this paper, comparability of these spaceborne DEMs among themselves and also with the DEM (TOPO) prepared from digital contour data of topographic maps is assessed. Results show that various primary and secondary derivatives of ASTER and SRTM DEMs provide relatively better precision and substantial agreement with the corresponding parameters derived from TOPO. Among the spaceborne DEMs, SRTM has relatively higher vertical accuracy (root mean square error = 17.05 m), compared to ASTER (24.09 m) and GMTED (32.85 m). The vertical accuracy of all the spaceborne DEMs strongly depends on the relief and ruggedness of the terrain as well as the type of vegetation. It is proposed that in the absence of other available and acceptable elevation datasets, SRTM and ASTER are equally competent for geomorphometric analysis in tropical regions, while GMTED shows significant loss of terrain information due to coarser spatial resolution.