Elevation and Depth

Sub-Theme

National Digital Elevation and Depth Model

Aggregator 
Geoscience Australia

The one arc second (~30m) DEMs provide a nationally consistent, medium resolution dataset essential for national and regional scale analysis using the best available source data. It comprises data derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and LiDAR where available.

Bathymetry is the study and mapping of sea floor topography. It involves obtaining measurements of the depth of the ocean and is equivalent to mapping the topography on land.
Such measurements can be made using:

-Multibeam (swath) echosounders
-Airborne laser measurements (LADS)
-Derived depths from satellite remote sensing
-Singlebeam echosounders

National Datasets in this Sub-Theme

National Digital Elevation Data
National Depth Data

Purpose

National DEM provides a national authoritative digital representation of the Earth’s surface

Dataset Uses

Key users of the Elevation dataset are Commonwealth, State and Territory and Local governments and the Research and Industry sectors.

  • Sea level rise planning – synthesise terrestrial data with bathymetric data to produce nested and continuous DEM/bathymetry data for sea level rise and inundation modelling
  • Environmental, including water management; Hydro enforcement of DEM critical for catchment delineation and hydrology reporting regions.
  • Definition of administrative boundaries
  • Emergency management and natural hazard risk assessment – flood modelling including risk of flood events, floodplain inundation and planning
  • Engineering projects and infrastructure development.

Standards and Specifications

ISO19100 series Geographic information
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) Implementation Specification 1.3.0 (OGC Document No. 06-042)

Access and Licensing

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Quality

This DEM was based on the 1 second SRTM-derived Digital Surface Model (DSM) that was itself derived from the 1 second Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission data. The DSM was produced by removing stripes, filling voids and re-flattening water bodies. Further details are provided in the DSM metadata (ANZCW0703013336).

The vegetation removal used the DSM without voids filled so that vegetation height estimates would not be affected by interpolated heights and so that voids adjacent to vegetated areas could be filled using bare-earth elevations

Current Status

Geoscience Australia curently releases the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission datasets Non-government users can order the 1 second (DEM,DEM-S,DEM-H), 3 second (DSM,DEM,DEM-S) and 9 second (DSM,DEM,DEM-S) elevation data which is licensed under Creative Commons.

Government users have full access to portal data including high resolution LiDAR data.

Future Status

National elevation products will be derived from more finely-detailed data held by local or state/territory authorities. In urban and other areas vulnerable to hazards, the quality of national elevation information will improve from the current 30m spacing to 5m spacing. Elevation products will be more widely delivered as web services.

Current term objective:

  • Developing technics to integrate high resolution dataset in to National DEM dataset.

Long term objectives:

  • Integrate high resolution data sets such as LiDAR data to improve accuracy.

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Version

1.00

Details