NASA CSDA Program Evaluates Polar Geospatial Center EarthDEM Products

• NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program released a quality assessment of the Polar Geospatial Center’s (PGC) EarthDEM products.
• Results support the use of EarthDEM data for NASA science provided that researchers account for specific data limitations.

Accuracy Findings

• Horizontal Accuracy: Both "Strip DSM" and "Mosaic Tile" products were graded "Excellent," with a Root Mean Square Error Horizontal (RMSEH) of 0.5m and 0.3m, respectively.
• Vertical Accuracy: Products were graded "Basic" due to performance variations across land cover types and reliance on cloud cover metadata.
  • Strip DSM: 5.6m RMSEV.
  • Mosaic Tile: 4.9m RMSEV.
  • Compliance: All results exceeded the PGC’s 0.5m specification, with Strip DSM accuracy fluctuating between 4.6m and 6.8m depending on cloud cover data.

Methodology and Documentation

• Assessment: NASA subject matter experts compared EarthDEM products against airborne lidar data from the United States and Senegal.
• Documentation: The review of the PGC user guides, peer-reviewed publications, and GitHub repositories concluded that the EarthDEM product is "well documented."

Context and Usage

• Program Goal: The CSDA program acquires commercial data to complement NASA’s existing Earth observation capabilities.
• Data Nature: EarthDEM is a digital elevation dataset derived from imagery captured by the Vantor (formerly Maxar) optical satellite fleet.