Elevation and Terrain Data

The USGS 3DEP elevation products from The National Map are the primary elevation datasets available from the USGS. These elevation products are continually updated by the USGS with LiDAR collected through the 3DEP program as part of the National Enhanced Elevation Assessment. Imagery services of these elevation products are also available.

Want to determine where lidar information was used to update 5, 10, and 30 meter USGS DEM products? There are spatial metadata files for each elevation product that have polygons depicting what the source data is for the DEM in that area. They can be found on the 3DEP Product Metadata page. Links to the spatial metadata files for 5 meter, 1/3 Arc-Second (10 meter), and 1 Arc-Second (30 meter) can be found under “Standard DEMs”. The data dictionary that describes each attribute and their domains is also available from the 3DEP Spatial Metadata Glossery. PMETHOD (Production Method) is the attribute you are looking for and any polygon with a PMETHOD value of 7 has lidar as it’s source. If you need further assistance please contact the National Map Help Desk from USGS at tnm_help@usgs.gov.

The UGRC has a statewide collection of the 10 and 30 meter bare-earth DEMs. This dataset was reprojected to UTM NAD83 Zone12 meters. The vertical datum is NAVD88. The boundaries of the elevation models can be viewed in the 10 meter and 30 meter tile index shapefiles.

For information about working with elevation data in the Pro/ArcMap environment take a look at Working with Mosaic and Reference Datasets.

Related Resources

• What is the vertical accuracy of the seamless 3DEP DEMs?

Comments, questions, compliments, or concerns can be directed to Rick Kelson from UGRC at RKelson@utah.gov.

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) elevation data is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of, a target by illuminating the target with light often using pulses from a laser. Currently this is the most accurate elevation dataset UGRC has but it is only available for some areas of the state. In addition to the bare-earth DEMs/DTMs and first-return DSMs, LAS point clouds are available from The National Map or by request from Rick Kelson from UGRC at RKelson@utah.gov. For more information about LiDAR visit Exploring LiDAR.

UGRC has partnered with various agencies over the years to acquire the following LiDAR datasets. Visit Raster.utah.gov to explore all available LiDAR collections.

Year	Resolution	Areas	Information
2020	1 meter	Central & Southern Utah	View
2020	.5 & 1 meter	Northern & Central Utah	View
2020	.5 & 1 meter	Southern Utah	View
2019	1 meter	Kane County	View
2019	.5 meter	Strawberry River	View
2018	.5 & 1 meter	Uintah Basin and Heber Valley	View
2018	.5 meter	Box Elder County	View
2018	.5 & 1 meter	Northern Utah	View
2018	.5 & 1 meter	Central Utah	View
2018	.5 & 1 meter	Southern Utah	View
2018	.5 meter	Sanpete Valley	View
2017	.5 meter	Millsite Reservoir	View
2017	.5 meter	Washakie and Whites Valley	View
2017	1 meter	Washington County	View
2016	.5 meter	Kanab Utah	View
2016	.5 meter	Bear Lake, Bear River, Cache Valley & Upper Weber Valley	View
2016	.5 & 1 meter	Great Salt Lake & Utah Lake	View
2016	.5 meter	Monroe Mountain	View
2016	.5 meter	FORGE	View
2015	.5 meter	Colorado, Green & Yampa Rivers	View
2015	.5 & 1 meter	Zion National Park	View
2013-2014	.5 meter	Wasatch Front and the Wasatch Fault	View
2011	1 meter	Great Salt Lake, Cedar Valley, Hurricane Fault	View
2006	1 meter	Wasatch Front, Iron County, Heber Valley	View

Related Resources

• 500 Foot Contours
• 2 Meter Contours from 2006 LiDAR (Salt Lake County Only)

Comments, questions, compliments, or concerns can be directed to Rick Kelson from UGRC at RKelson@utah.gov.

   

UGRC has a statewide coverage of 5 meter Auto-Correlated DEMs in addition to some 2 meter areas. The DEMs were created from the imagery collected during the 2006 NAIP and HRO aerial photography flights. The auto-correlation process is not as rigorous as other methods of elevation modeling such as photogrammetry, lidar mapping, radar mapping, etc, and therefore end-users should be aware that anomalies are expected within the elevation dataset. In comparison to the USGS DEM datasets, the 2 and 5-meter DEMs in some areas provides higher resolution and horizontal accuracy but anomalies are present within the data.

The DEM files are stored as .asc formatted files and are ~10MB per 2,000 X 2,000 meter block. This data is in a UTM NAD83 meters projection. The 2 meter DEMs have a Vertical Accuracy of RMSE 4.27' - NSSDA 95% 8.4' and a Horizontal Accuracy NSSDA, radial RMSE of 4.4', 95% confidence 7.6'. The 5 meter DEMs have a have a Vertical Accuracy of RMSE 4m - NSSDA 95% of 9.8m and a Horizontal Accuracy RMSE 3m, NSSDA 95% of 5.2m. For more information about the stated accuracy of the datasets please refer to the metadata and quality assurance reports below.

Related Resources

• Auto-Correlated DEM information
• How to Work With ASCII Format Elevation Data in ArcMap

Comments, questions, compliments, or concerns can be directed to Rick Kelson from UGRC at RKelson@utah.gov.