Published: Sep 15, 2011 by ISG Board
The 4th international conference + workshops on Geomorphometry / Digital terrain modelling and analysis will be held next year in Nanjing, China. If you have not done already, put this date in your agenda: October 16-20, 2013 (Wednesday to Sunday). We expect again an exciting programme with several workshops and training sessions. This edition of Geomorphometry is kindly sponsored by the Geographical Society of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographical Environment, Ministry of Education, and Nanjing Normal University. For all other info please refer to www.geomorphometry.org/meetings/nanjing-2013/
Colleagues from ESRI are actively producing geomorphometry tools and data sets for public use. This is an example of a multiscale slope map built using the ArcGIS JavaScript API. The ESRI’s World Elevation Services is expected to become fully operational in mid 2012. It will contain image services, data download services, and analysis task services available, as well as sample applications.
Google has recently released a Google Elevation service. The Elevation service provides SRTM/bathymetry elevation data for locations on the surface of the earth, including depth locations on the ocean floor (negative values). It can be used to produce elevation paths and get elevations for any point on Earth’s surface (maximum of 2,500 requests per day).
Have you missed the Geomorphometry 2011 conference? No problem. All presentations from Geomorphometry 2011 are available via the ESRI proceedings website. All papers and attached datasets can also be accessed freely from the Geomorphometry homepage.
TanDEM-X is the new generation satellite (owned by the German Aerospace Center) that aims at producing new generation radar-based DEMs with a horizontal detail of 12 meters) and a height accuracy of better than 2 m. The data will likely not be publicly available, but the new global DEM will completely change the world of geomorphometry. http://www.dlr.de/hr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2317
A recent geography Master’s thesis by Jason Goetz from the University of Waterloo, Canada utilizes terrain analysis tools implemented in open-source software (SAGA GIS, R) for exploring the regional controls of landslide initiation on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. A nonparametric regression technique, the generalized additive model (GAM), was used to model the relationship of topography, climate, forest harvesting activities and geology to landslide initiation, underlining the importance of the impacts of logging roads. Based on the model predictions, the most susceptible 4% of the study area had 29 times higher density of landslide initiation points than the least susceptible 73% of the study area,