Digital Terrain Modelling: Development and Applications in a Policy Support Environment

326 Pages·2007·12.159 MB·English

by  Robert Joseph Peckham, Gyozo Jordan

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography
Series Editors: William Cartwright, Georg Gartner, Liqiu Meng,
Michael P. Peterson
Robert J. Peckham • Gyozo Jordan
(Eds.)

Digital Terrain Modelling

Development and Applications
in a Policy Support Environment

With 126 Figures
Editors:

Dr. Robert Joseph Peckham
4 Rossie Lodge
Dores Road
Inverness
IV2 4HB
U.K.

E-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Gyozo Jordan
Geological Institute of Hungary (MAFI)
Stefania ut 14
Budapest 1143
Hungary

E-mail: [email protected]

ISBN 10 3-540-36730-6 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York
ISBN 13 978-3-540-36730-7 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York
ISSN 1863-2246
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007929276

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Preface
This book presents a set of papers on Digital Terrain Modelling for Policy
Support which aims to be informative and stimulating for both developers
and users of digital terrain models. It should also be useful for profession-
als who are interested in the wider aspects of the applications of terrain
models in support for policies and decision making.
There is an increasing demand for regional and continental scale data for
use in environmental modelling and spatial analysis to support environ-
mental policy development and implementation. Important environmental
processes act at regional and continental scales, for example climatic
change inducing floods and soil erosion, and management of these proc-
esses for the sustainable development of society requires policies to be ap-
plied at the corresponding scales. One of the most important factors influ-
encing these environmental processes which act on the earth’s surface is
the surface topography, hence the need for extensive, harmonised digital
terrain models.
Despite the steadily increasing literature on the developing field of digital
terrain modelling, there is a lack of information about their regional and
policy applications. Some reasons for this are that, on one hand, policies
are only recently being developed for the regional and continental scales,
and are still largely limited to developed parts of the world and, on the
other hand, large-scale DEMs and the required computational power have
only become widely available relatively recently. This book therefore aims
to give an inspiring insight into the problems, methods and some of the
applications of DEMs in policy support. It is practice-oriented by provid-
ing descriptions of algorithms, databases and information sources oriented
to the environmental modeller and GIS expert working on regional plan-
ning and policy support applications.
The first six papers describe recent advances in the theories and founda-
tions as well as the practical techniques for developing and tailoring the
digital terrain models for their intended purposes. The topics addressed in-
VI Preface
clude the mathematical and numerical development of digital terrain
analysis for geomorphometric and surface transport modelling, the use of
mathematical morphology and image analysis to describe terrain features,
optimisation of interpolation parameters using cross-validation, and the in-
fluence of input data design on the accuracy of the resulting elevation
models. Also reported are projects which are making use of data from the
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Modern techniques for data
capture based on space technology now allow us to obtain elevation infor-
mation on a European and even global scale, but even with these methods
for extensive data capture a lot of work still needs to be done in process-
ing, refining and adapting the data for its specific purpose. These tech-
niques are brought out in papers describing development of European da-
tabases for use in soil applications and hydrology.
The following five papers focus more closely on applications. Three are
devoted to applications of digital terrain models related to flooding, includ-
ing a decision support system for flood control, flood risk mapping, and
the design of flood emergency reservoirs. The next paper describes the de-
velopment of physiographic units for the European sector of the World
Soil and Terrain (SOTER) Digital Database, which has a very broad range
of applications in the management of agricultural and environmental re-
sources. The final application is solar energy resource modelling, for
which elevation, aspect and slope are key input data.
Two further technical notes describe statistical tools for analysis of Digital
Elevation Models, and the definition and calculation of the Potential
Drainage Density Index which is useful for characterising landscapes in
hydrogeological applications.
We are especially grateful to the European Commission’s Joint Research
Centre (JRC) which has contributed extensively to this volume. Most of
the authors of the presented papers are either based at the JRC’s Environ-
ment Institute, or have spent some time there working on digital terrain
models in a policy support context. The JRC is concerned with the applica-
tion of the innovations in science and technology to support policies for
the whole of Europe and it is therefore particularly appropriate that they
are involved in the development of the methods and applications for Digi-
tal Terrain Modelling over this extensive region. In order to provide sound,
fair and well balanced policy support for all European countries it is essen-
tial that the underlying scientific and technical data be accurate, reliable,
and harmonised for their intended purpose. The work on harmonising geo-
spatial information in general is of special concern for the European
Preface VII
Commission, as it is needed to sustain many European Policy areas, and
the JRC is strongly supporting the INSPIRE initiative (Infrastructure for
Spatial Information in Europe) which is working towards this goal. Digital
Terrain Models are an excellent example of a type of geographic informa-
tion where, in the past, different approaches, methods and standards ap-
plied in different countries have lead to discrepancies arising at country
borders when information is put together. These discrepancies can no
longer be tolerated when we need to model and simulate, for example,
flooding in rivers which cross the borders. The work described in this book
can therefore be seen as a contribution to the INSPIRE initiative, but also
an essential step in making Digital Terrain Models applicable for a range
of policy applications over a wide region. The scientific and technical
foundations of this, including the theories, methods, and algorithms, are
the daily work of the authors of these papers and we sincerely thank them
all for their substantial contributions and patience during the editing phase.
Additional thanks are due to Pierre Soille for his excellent assistance with
indexing.
We hope that this book will provide a useful input to the research field of
Digital Terrain Modelling, as well as a helpful support, and indeed an in-
spiration to people working in this area.
Robert Peckham
Gyozo Jordan
January 2007
Contents
CHAPTER 1.
DIGITAL TERRAIN ANALYSIS IN A GIS ENVIRONMENT.
CONCEPTS AND DEVELOPMENT.……………………………….…1
Gyozo Jordan
1. Introduction............................................................................................1
2. Digital Terrain Analysis in a GIS Environment.................................2
3. Mathematical Development..................................................................4
3.1 Vector-scalar Functions: Spatial Curves, Curvature and Surfaces...4
3.2 Scalar-vector Functions: Gradient Vector, Slope and Aspect........14
3.3 The Link between Surface Geometry and Surface Flow: Gradient
and Curvature.......................................................................................17
3.4 Vector Analysis and Digital Terrain Modelling: Geometric
Characterisation of Topographic Surfaces............................................20
4. Numerical Methods..............................................................................21
4.1 Digital Representation of Topographic Surface: Continuity and
Smoothness...........................................................................................21
4.2 Calculation of Partial Derivatives for Gradient and Curvature
Estimation.............................................................................................24
4.3 Which Gradient Calculation Method Should be Used?..................28
4.4 Avoiding Second-order Derivatives: Break Lines and Inflexion
Lines.....................................................................................................33
4.5 Calculation of Singular Points........................................................35
4.6 Digital Drainage Analysis: Ridge and Valley Lines.......................37
5. Conclusions...........................................................................................38
References.................................................................................................39
X Contents
CHAPTER 2.
FROM MATHEMATICAL MORPHOLOGY TO
MORPHOLOGICAL TERRAIN FEATURES.…………….………...45
Pierre Soille
1. Introduction..........................................................................................45
2. First Steps in Mathematical Morphology…………………….46
2.1 Erosion and Dilatation…………………………………………….46
2.2 Opening and Closing......................................................................47
2.3 Geodesic Transformations………………………………………...47
3. From Topographic Maps to DEMs....................................................50
3.1 Plateau Image Generation...............................................................51
3.2 Interpolation Along Steepest Slope Lines......................................51
4. From DEMs to River Networks..........................................................52
4.1 Spurious Pits and their Suppression...............................................54
4.2 Flow Directions..............................................................................57
4.3 Contributing Drainage Areas..........................................................59
5. Dividing Lines......................................................................................59
5.1 Watersheds......................................................................................62
5.2 Crest Lines......................................................................................62
6. Concluding Remarks...........................................................................62
References.................................................................................................63
CHAPTER 3.
OPTIMISATION OF INTERPOLATION PARAMETERS USING
CROSS-VALIDATION.…………….……….........................................67
Jaroslav Hofierka, Tomáš Cebecauer and Marcel Šúri
1. Introduction..........................................................................................67
2. Interpolation by Regularised Spline with Tension...........................68
3. The RST Control Parameters.............................................................70
Contents XI
4. Evaluation of Interpolation Accuracy................................................71
5. Application to Digital Terrain Modelling..........................................73
6. Results and Discussion.........................................................................75
7. Conclusions...........................................................................................79
References.................................................................................................81
CHAPTER 4.
SCALE-DEPENDENT EFFECT OF INPUT DATA DESIGN ON
DEM ACCURACY……………….….……….........................................83
Radoslav Bonk
1. Introduction..........................................................................................83
2. Study Area............................................................................................86
3. Methodology.........................................................................................87
3.1 Statistical Analysis of Interpolated Surfaces..................................88
4. Results...................................................................................................89
4.1 Statistical Analysis.........................................................................89
4.2 Spatial Autocorrelation...................................................................91
5. Discussion.............................................................................................92
6. Conclusions...........................................................................................93
References.................................................................................................97
Referenced Web Sites..............................................................................98
CHAPTER 5.
SRTM AS A POSSIBLE SOURCE OF ELEVATION
INFORMATION FOR SOIL-LANDSCAPE MODELLING………..99
Borut Vrš(cid:254)aj, Joël Daroussin and Luca Montanarella
1. Introduction..........................................................................................99