Southern Africa Digital Elevation Model from GLOBE Dataset

A southern African subset of the Global Land One-Kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) digital elevation model provides terrain data in ASCII GRID and binary image formats. The dataset has a global resolution of 30 arc-seconds, resulting in a grid of 21,600 rows by 43,200 columns, with elevation values ranging from -407 to 8,752 meters on land. It was produced by the ORNL_CLOUD organization, with metadata indicating updates in 1999 and 2026.

Use Cases

• Terrain analysis and slope calculation using the elevation values in meters.
• Hydrological modeling to delineate watersheds based on the 1-km gridded elevation data.
• Visualizing southern African topography by rendering the raster elevation data.
• Integrating elevation as a covariate in ecological or climate models for the region.

Strengths

• Provides a specific regional subset (southern Africa) from a well-known global DEM.
• Offers high-resolution data with a grid spacing of 30 arc-seconds, equating to roughly 1 km at the equator.
• Includes detailed technical specifications, such as the WGS84 coordinate system and elevation range from -407 to 8,752 meters.

Limitations

• Sources conflict on the last updated date, listing both 1999-06-01 and 2026-03 12.
• Small islands less than approximately 1 square kilometer may not be represented due to raster structure.
• Column names and exact row count for the subset are not provided by any source.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD organization, derived from the Global Land One-Kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) DEM.

Collection Method

Subset created from the global GLOBE Version 1.0 dataset, with ocean areas masked and assigned a value of -500.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:18:06.273169

Geography

Southern Africa.