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Sink Removal from Digital Elevation Model–A Necessary Evil for Hydrological Analysis


Affiliations
1 Civil Engineering Department, BRCM College of Engineering and Technology, Bahal 127 028, India
2 Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721 302, India
 

The present study involves a comparative appraisal of three different sink removal algorithms. The publicly available shuttle radar topographic mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) version 3.0 of 90 m resolution was used as input DEM. Three sink filling algorithms proposed by Jennson and Domingue (JD), Planchon and Darboux (PD), and impact reduction approach by Lindsay were evaluated for their efficiency in removing the sink from SRTM DEM with minimum alteration of original DEM quality. Various primary and secondary parameters were used for comparative assessment. It was found that all the three algorithms altered the originality of the DEM significantly, but to a different extent. It was found that the PD method of sink removal was better than the other two methods studied here. However, the results also substantiated that the hydrologist must take due care to minimize any uncertainty that might arise due to DEM preprocessing.

Keywords

Digital Elevation Model, Hydrological Preprocessing, Sink Filling Algorithms, Terrain Analysis System.
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  • Sink Removal from Digital Elevation Model–A Necessary Evil for Hydrological Analysis

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Authors

Arabinda Sharma
Civil Engineering Department, BRCM College of Engineering and Technology, Bahal 127 028, India
K. N. Tiwari
Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721 302, India

Abstract


The present study involves a comparative appraisal of three different sink removal algorithms. The publicly available shuttle radar topographic mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) version 3.0 of 90 m resolution was used as input DEM. Three sink filling algorithms proposed by Jennson and Domingue (JD), Planchon and Darboux (PD), and impact reduction approach by Lindsay were evaluated for their efficiency in removing the sink from SRTM DEM with minimum alteration of original DEM quality. Various primary and secondary parameters were used for comparative assessment. It was found that all the three algorithms altered the originality of the DEM significantly, but to a different extent. It was found that the PD method of sink removal was better than the other two methods studied here. However, the results also substantiated that the hydrologist must take due care to minimize any uncertainty that might arise due to DEM preprocessing.

Keywords


Digital Elevation Model, Hydrological Preprocessing, Sink Filling Algorithms, Terrain Analysis System.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv117%2Fi9%2F1512-1515