Document Type

Article

Abstract

The effects of land cover and surface slope on lidar-derived elevation data were examined for a watershed in the piedmont of North Carolina. Lidar data were collected over the study area in a winter (leaf-off) overflight. Survey-grade elevation points (1,225) for six different land cover classes were used as reference points. Root mean squared error (RMSE) for land cover classes ranged from 14.5 cm to 36.1 cm. Land cover with taller canopy vegetation exhibited the largest errors. The largest mean error (36.1 cm RMSE) was in the scrub-shrub cover class. Over the small slope range (0° to 10°) in this study area, there was little evidence for an increase in elevation error with increased slopes. However, for low grass land cover, elevation errors do increase in a consistent manner with increasing slope. Slope errors increased with increasing surface slope, under-predicting true slope on surface slopes >2°. On average, the lidar-derived elevation under-predicted true elevation regardless of land cover category. The under-prediction was significant, and ranged up to -23.6 cm under pine land cover. © 2005 American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.71.7.817

Rights

© 2005 American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

APA Citation

Hodgson, M. J., Jensen, J. T., Raber, G. T., Tullis, J. A., Davis, B. H., Thompson, G. M., & Schuckman, K. (2005). An Evaluation of Lidar-derived Elevation and Terrain Slope in Leaf-off Conditions. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 71(7), 817–823. https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.71.7.817

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