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MERIT DEM (Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain Digital Elevation Model)
MERIT DEM is a high-accuracy global digital elevation model (DEM) at 3 arc-second resolution (~90 m at the equator), developed by removing multiple error components from existing spaceborne DEMs. The developers separated and eliminated absolute bias, stripe noise, speckle noise, and tree height bias using multiple satellite datasets and filtering techniques. MERIT DEM was created by processing baseline DEMs including NASA SRTM3 DEM v2.1, JAXA AW3D-30m DEM v1, and Viewfinder Panoramas' DEM. After error removal, land areas mapped with 2 m or better vertical accuracy increased from 39% to 58%. The dataset represents terrain elevations in meters referenced to WGS84 horizontal datum and the EGM96 geoid, covering global land areas between 90°N and 60°S. Data are organized as 5°×5° tiles (6000×6000 pixels) and distributed in 30°×30° packages; filenames encode the center of the lower-left pixel (e.g., "n30w120_dem.tif" covers N30–N35 and W120–W115) and package names encode the lower-left corner of the 30°×30° domain (e.g., "dem_tif_n30w120.tar" contains tiles for N30–N60 and W120–W090).
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0 (ODbL 1.0)
Terrain elevation in meters referenced to WGS84 and the EGM96 geoid.
Error removal from baseline spaceborne DEMs (absolute bias, stripe noise, speckle noise, tree height bias)
Filtering and correction using multiple satellite and ancillary datasets
application/octet-stream (ESRI EHdr/FLT raster with HDR
Current official product page describing MERIT DEM, registration, download access, version, data format, coverage, license terms, and citation guidance.
Provider download access page reached after completing the MERIT DEM registration and license agreement process; current provider documentation states data are distributed in GeoTIFF format.
A high accuracy map of global terrain elevations