Scale dependence in terrain analysis

Topographic attributes computed from digital elevation models are dependent on the resolution of the elevation data from which they are computed. A regular rectangular grid is not an ideal representation of topographic surfaces for the study of scale effects. Spectral and wavelet techniques are obvious alternatives but have several deficiencies, particularly in their use of oscillatory basis functions. The positive wavelet representation has very attractive properties of localisation and feature representation. Preliminary application to one-dimensional topographic data (profiles) yields useful results, including the identification of changes in topographic structure with scale. Extension to two-dimensional analysis will allow quantification of characteristic shapes, scales and orientations in the landscape.

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