G-LiHT Digital Terrain Model: LiDAR-Derived Elevation at 1-Meter Resolution

NASA's G-LiHT airborne imaging system collects data over forest communities and ecoregions in North America, including the Conterminous United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The Digital Terrain Model product provides LiDAR-derived bare earth elevation, aspect, and slope at a nominal 1-meter spatial resolution, processed as Google Earth overlay KML files. Data collection began in 2011 and continues to grow with new aerial campaigns.

Use Cases

• Modeling hydrological flow and watershed analysis based on LiDAR-derived elevation and slope.
• Assessing forest structure and biomass by analyzing terrain characteristics.
• Creating high-resolution base maps for ecological research based on the 1-meter spatial resolution data.
• Analyzing terrain aspect for solar radiation and microclimate studies in forested areas.

Strengths

• Provides data at a nominal 1-meter spatial resolution, suggesting high detail.
• Covers a broad diversity of forest communities and ecoregions across multiple regions in North America.
• Data collection is ongoing, with campaigns starting in 2011, indicating a temporal series.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is processed over locally-defined areas, suggesting coverage may be patchy rather than continuous.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center

Collection Method

Collected via the portable, airborne G-LiHT (Goddard’s LiDAR, Hyperspectral, and Thermal Imager) system.

Time Range

Collection began in 2011 and is ongoing.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:43:16.585690; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.