ASTER is capable of collecting in-track stereo using nadir- and aft-looking near infrared cameras. Since 2001, these stereo pairs have been used to produce single-scene (60- x 60-kilomenter (km)) digital elevation models (DEM) having vertical (root-mean-squared-error) accuracies generally between 10- and 25-meters (m). The methodology used by Japan's Sensor Information Laboratory Corporation (SILC) to produce the ASTER GDEM involves automated processing of the entire ASTER Level-1A archive. Stereo-correlation is used to produce over one million individual scene-based ASTER DEMs, to which cloud masking is applied to remove cloudy pixels. All cloud-screened DEMS are stacked and residual bad values and outliers are removed. Selected data are averaged to create final pixel values, and residual anomalies are corrected before partitioning the data into 1 degree (°) x 1° tiles. The ASTER GDEM covers land surfaces between 83°N and 83°S and is comprised of 22,702 tiles. Tiles that contain at least 0.01% land area are included. The ASTER GDEM is distributed as Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) files with geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude). The data are posted on a 1 arc-second (approximately 30–m at the equator) grid and referenced to the 1984 World Geodetic System (WGS84)/ 1996 Earth Gravitational Model (EGM96) geoid.

The Terra Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) Version 3 (ASTGTM) provides a global digital elevation model (DEM) of land areas on Earth at a spatial resolution of 1 arc second (approximately 30 meter horizontal posting at the equator).The development of the ASTER GDEM data products is a collaborative effort between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). The ASTER GDEM data products are created by the Sensor Information Laboratory Corporation (SILC) in Tokyo. The ASTER GDEM Version 3 data product was created from the automated processing of the entire ASTER Level 1A archive of scenes acquired between March 1, 2000, and November 30, 2013. Stereo correlation was used to produce over one million individual scene based ASTER DEMs, to which cloud masking was applied. All cloud screened DEMs and non-cloud screened DEMs were stacked. Residual bad values and outliers were removed. In areas with limited data stacking, several existing reference DEMs were used to supplement ASTER data to correct for residual anomalies. Selected data were averaged to create final pixel values before partitioning the data into 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude tiles with a one pixel overlap. To correct elevation values of water body surfaces, the ASTER Global Water Bodies Database (ASTWBD) Version 1 data product was also generated. The geographic coverage of the ASTER GDEM extends from 83° North to 83° South. Each tile is distributed in both a Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) and NetCDF4 format through NASA Earthdata Search and in standard GeoTIFF format through the LP DAAC Data Pool. Data are projected on the 1984 World Geodetic System (WGS84)/1996 Earth Gravitational Model (EGM96) geoid. Each of the 22,912 tiles in the collection contain at least 0.01% land area. Provided in the ASTER GDEM product are layers for DEM and number of scenes (NUM). The NUM layer indicates the number of scenes that were processed for each pixel and the source of the data.While the ASTER GDEM Version 3 data products offer substantial improvements over Version 2, users are advised that the products still may contain anomalies and artifacts that will reduce its usability for certain applications. Known Issues ASTER GDEM Version 3 tiles overlap by one pixel to the north, south, east, and west of the tile perimeter. In most cases the overlapping edge pixels have identical pixel values, but it is possible that in some instances values will differ. * ASTER GDEM Version 3 is considered to be void free except for Greenland and Antarctica. Users are reminded that because there are known inaccuracies and artifacts in the dataset, to use the product with awareness of these limitations. The data are provided "as is" and neither NASA nor METI/Earth Resources Satellite Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC) will be responsible for any damages resulting from use of the data.Improvements/Changes from Previous Version Expansion of acquisition coverage to increase the amount of cloud free input scenes from about 1.5 million in Version 2 to about 1.88 million scenes in Version 3. Separation of rivers from lakes in the water body processing.* Minimum water body detection size decreased from 1 square kilometer (km²) to 0.2 km².

The ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) Version 3 (ASTGTM) provides a global digital elevation model (DEM) of land areas on Earth at a spatial resolution of 1 arc second (approximately 30 meter horizontal posting at the equator).

The development of the ASTER GDEM data products is a collaborative effort between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). The ASTER GDEM data products are created by the Sensor Information Laboratory Corporation (SILC) in Tokyo.

The ASTER GDEM Version 3 data product was created from the automated processing of the entire ASTER Level 1A archive of scenes acquired between March 1, 2000, and November 30, 2013. Stereo correlation was used to produce over one million individual scene based ASTER DEMs, to which cloud masking was applied. All cloud screened DEMs and non-cloud screened DEMs were stacked. Residual bad values and outliers were removed. In areas with limited data stacking, several existing reference DEMs were used to supplement ASTER data to correct for residual anomalies. Selected data were averaged to create final pixel values before partitioning the data into 1° by 1° tiles with a one pixel overlap. To correct elevation values of water body surfaces, the ASTER Global Water Bodies Database (ASTWBD) Version 1 data product was also generated.

The geographic coverage of the ASTER GDEM extends from 83° North to 83° South. Each tile is distributed in GeoTIFF format and projected on the 1984 World Geodetic System (WGS84)/1996 Earth Gravitational Model (EGM96) geoid. Each of the 22,912 tiles in the collection contain at least 0.01% land area.

On June 29, 2009, NASA and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan released a Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) to users worldwide at no charge as a contribution to the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). This version 1 ASTER GDEM (GDEM1) was compiled from over 1.2 million scenebased DEMs covering land surfaces between 83°N and 83°S latitudes. A second version of the ASTER GDEM (GDEM2) was released by NASA and METI on 17 October, 2011. Improvements in the GDEM2 result from acquiring 260,000 additional scenes to improve coverage, a smaller correlation kernel to yield higher spatial resolution, and improved water masking. The ASTER GDEM V2 maintains the GeoTIFF format and the same gridding and tile structure as V1, with 30-meter postings and 1 x 1 degree tiles. Version 2 shows significant improvements over the previous release. The GDEM is available for download from NASA Reverb, LP DAAC Global Data Explorer, and J-spacesystems ASTER GDEM Page.

Source: http://www.jspacesystems.or.jp/ersdac/GDEM/ver2Validation/Summary_GDEM2_validation_report_final.pdf ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Version 2 Summary of Validation Results Accessed 05/11/2013 And http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gdem.asp

A 'Digital Elevation Model (DEM)' is a 3D approximation of the terrain's surface created from elevation data. The term 'Digital Surface Model (DSM)' represents the earth's surface and includes all objects including e.g. forests, buildings. The Digital Elevation Model over Europe from the GMES Reference Data Access project (EU-DEM) is a Digital Surface Model (DSM) representing the first surface as illuminated by the sensors. EU-DEM covers the 39 member and cooperating countries of EEA. The EU-DEM is a hybrid product based on SRTM and ASTER GDEM data fused by a weighted averaging approach. Different products have been derived from the EU-DEM, including raster’s of the slope, terrain aspect and hillshade. The different products are made available in both full-European coverage as in a set of 25 tiles covering 1000x1000km each. The EU-DEM map shows a colour shaded relief image over Europe, which has been created by EEA using a hillshade dataset derived from the ETRS89-LAEA version of EU-DEM. As this data cannot be used for analysis purposes (and that there are some known artefacts West of Norway), the downloadable data are single band raster’s with values relating to the actual elevation. The datasets are encoded as GeoTIFF with LZW compression (tiles) or DEFLATE compression (European mosaics as single files). The Web maps include WFS, WMS and WCS services. The EU-DEM statistical validation documents a relatively unbiased (-0.56 meters) overall vertical accuracy of 2.9 meters RMSE, which is fully within the contractual specification of 7m RMSE and the full report can be found at [1].

[1] https://cws-download.eea.europa.eu/in-situ/eudem/Report-EU-DEM-statistical-validation-August2014.pdf

The Terra Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Water Bodies Database (ASTWBD) Version 1 data product provides global coverage of water bodies larger than 0.2 square kilometers at a spatial resolution of 1 arc second (approximately 30 meters) at the equator, along with associated elevation information.

The ASTWBD data product was created in conjunction with the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM) Version 3 data product by the Sensor Information Laboratory Corporation (SILC) in Tokyo. The ASTER GDEM Version 3 data product was generated using ASTER Level 1A scenes acquired between March 1, 2000, and November 30, 2013. The ASTWBD data product was then generated to correct elevation values of water body surfaces.

To generate the ASTWBD data product, water bodies were separated from land areas and then classified into three categories: ocean, river, or lake. Oceans and lakes have a flattened, constant elevation value. The effects of sea ice were manually removed from areas classified as oceans to better delineate ocean shorelines in high latitude areas. For lake water bodies, the elevation for each lake was calculated from the perimeter elevation data using the mosaic image that covers the entire area of the lake. Rivers presented a unique challenge given that their elevations gradually step down from upstream to downstream; therefore, visual inspection and other manual detection methods were required.

The geographic coverage of the ASTWBD extends from 83°N to 83°S. Each tile is distributed in GeoTIFF format and referenced to the 1984 World Geodetic System (WGS84)/1996 Earth Gravitational Model (EGM96) geoid. Each data product is provided as a zipped file that contains an attribute file with the water body classification information and a DEM file, which provides elevation information in meters.