LiDAR based Digital Surface Model (DSM) data for South West England

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) acquired a new high resolution (~1 point/meter) and high accuracy (25 cm vertical) LiDAR dataset over Cornwall and Devon during the month of July and August 2013 for the Tellus South West project. The conversion of the raw LiDAR data into the digital terrain and surface model was carried out by the Environment Agency (contract). The spatial dataset consists of 2 cm height layers representing the terrain and surface height respectively at a spatial resolution of 1 m (grid cell) and an average height accuracy of 25 cm. The Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM) cover an area of 9424 km2 that includes all the land west of Exmouth (i.e. west of circa 3o 21’ W). The data is available as individual files representing sections of Ordnance Survey tiles in ESRI grid format (e.g. SX37ne; SX37nw; SX37se; SX37sw). The DTM represents the topographic model (height) of the bare earth. The DSM includes the height of features on the bare earth (if present), such as buildings or vegetation. An overview of the TELLUS project is available on the web at http://www.tellusgb.ac.uk/.