Facets of uncertainty in digital elevation and slope modeling

Abstract

This paper investigates the differences that result from applying different approaches to uncertainty modeling and reports an experimental examining error estimation and propagation in elevation and slope, with the latter derived from the former. It is confirmed that significant differences exist between uncertainty descriptors, and propagation of uncertainty to end products is immensely affected by the specification of source uncertainty.

Key Words:

• uncertainty
• accuracy assessment
• error surfaces
• geostatistics
• stochastic simulation
• realizations
• digital elevation models (DEMs)
• slope

CLC Number:

• P231.5
• TP751