On the standardization of vertical accuracy figures in DEMs

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) play a key role in hydrological risk prevention and mitigation: hydraulic numeric simulations, slope and aspect maps all heavily rely on DEMs. Hydraulic numeric simulations require the used DEM to have a defined accuracy, in order to obtain reliable results. Are the DEM accuracy figures clearly and uniquely defined? The paper focuses on some issues concerning DEM accuracy definition and assessment. Two DEM accuracy definitions can be found in literature: accuracy at the interpolated point and accuracy at the nodes. The former can be estimated by means of randomly distributed check points, while the latter by means of check points coincident with the nodes. The two considered accuracy figures are often treated as equivalent, but they aren't. Given the same DEM, assessing it through one or the other approach gives different results. Our paper performs an indepth characterization of the two figures and proposes standardization coefficients.