Advanced analysis of differences between C and X bands using SRTM data for mountainous topography

Abstract

By Interferometric Synthectic Aperture Radar (InSAR), during the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) height models have been generated, covering the earth surface from 56° south to 60.25° north. With the exception of small gaps in steep parts, dry sand deserts and water surfaces, the free available US C-band data cover the earth surface from 56° south to 60.25° north completely while the X-band data, distributed by the DLR (German Aerospace Center), cover it only partially. The C-band and X-band radar cannot penetrate the vegetation because of the short wavelength. Therefore, the height models are not Digital Elevation Models (DEM) representing bare Earth surface without any details, they are Digital Surface Models (DSM) representing the visible surface including vegetation and buildings. In the area of Zonguldak, Turkey, C-band and X-band DSMs are available and have been analysed in cooperation between Zonguldak Karaelmas University (ZKU) and Leibniz University of Hannover. The digitized contour lines from the 1:25,000 scale topographic maps and also a more precise height model derived directly from large scale photogrammetric mapping are used as reference height models.

The terrain inclination influences the accuracy strongly, but also the directions of the inclination in relation to the radar view direction, the aspects, are important. Independent from the aspects, the analysed results do have root mean square differences against the reference data fitting very well to the Koppe formula SZ=a+b*tan α. The analyses are made separately for open and forest areas, with clear accuracy differences between both. Also, the analysis of X-band separately for three sub-areas is done and the positive effect of double observation to the accuracy has been clearly determined. The C-band data are only available with a spacing of 3 arcsec, corresponding to 92m × 70m, while the X-band data do have a spacing of 1 arcsec. This is important for the interpolation in the mountainous test area. The accuracy of the height points is approximately the same for the C- and the X-band data. But the C-band data which have three times larger spacing than Xband data, do not include the same morphological information. While C-band data contain very generalised contour lines X-band data have quite more details depending on 1 arcsec point spacing. The differential DEMs have been generated, separately, for displaying the differences between SRTM height models and reference DEMs of the test field.