High-Resolution Elevation Model of Lop Nur Playa Derived from TanDEM-X

Abstract

In this paper, a digital elevation model (DEM) was produced for Lop Nur playa produced with the data from TanDEM-X mission. The spatial resolution is 10 m. It covers an area of 38,000 km2 for orthometric height from 785 m to 900 m above sea level, which is composed of 42 interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) scenes. A least-square adjustment approach was used to reduce the systematic errors in each DEM scene. The DEM produced was validated with data from other sensors including Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) and aerial Structure-from-Motion (SfM) DEM. The results show that global elevation root mean square error to GLAS is 0.57 m, and the relative height error to SfM DEM in complicated terrain is 3 m. The excellent height reliability of TanDEM InSAR DEM in Lop region was proved in this paper. A reliable high-resolution basic topographic dataset for researches of Lop Nur was provided.