Accuracy of interpolation techniques for the derivation of digital

elevation models in relation to landform types and data density

Vincent Chaplot
a,b,

, Frdric Darboux
c
, Hocine Bourennane
c
, Sophie Legudois
c
,
Norbert Silvera
b
, Konngkeo Phachomphon
b
a
Centre IRD d'le de France, 32, avenue Henri Varagnat-93143 Bondy Cedex, France
b
NAFRI, IRD-Ambassade de France, BP 06, Vientiane, Lao-PDR
c
INRA Orlans-Science du Sol, Avenue de la Pomme de Pin, BP 20619, F-45166 Olivet Cedex, France
Received 28 July 2005; received in revised form 21 December 2005; accepted 22 December 2005
Available online 14 February 2006
Abstract
One of the most important scientific challenges of digital elevation modeling is the development of numerical
representations of large areas with a high resolution. Although there have been many studies on the accuracy of
interpolation techniques for the generation of digital elevation models (DEMs) in relation to landform types and data
quantity or density, there is still a need to evaluate the performance of these techniques on natural landscapes of differing
morphologies and over a large range of scales. To perform such an evaluation, we investigated a total of six sites, three in
the mountainous region of northern Laos and three in the more gentle landscape of western France, with various surface
areas from micro-plots, hillslopes, and catchments. The techniques used for the interpolation of point height data with
density values from 4 to 10
9
points/km
2
include: inverse distance weighting (IDW), ordinary kriging (OK), universal kriging
(UK), multiquadratic radial basis function (MRBF), and regularized spline with tension (RST). The study sites exhibited
coefficients of variation (CV) of altitude between 12% and 78%, and isotropic to anisotropic spatial structures with strengths
from weak (with a nugget/sill ratio of 0.8) to strong (0.01). Irrespective of the spatial scales or the variability and spatial
structure of altitude, few differences existed between the interpolation methods if the sampling density was high, although
MRBF performed slightly better. However, at lower sampling densities, kriging yielded the best estimations for landscapes
with strong spatial structure, low CV and low anisotropy, while RST yielded the best estimations for landscapes with low
CV and weak spatial structure. Under conditions of high CV, strong spatial structure and strong anisotropy, IDW performed
slightly better than the other method. The prediction errors in height estimation are discussed in relation to the possible
Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph
Abbreviations: Av, average; CK, co-kriging; CV, coefficient of variation; D, sampling density (in data point/km
2
); DEM, digital elevation model;
ES, equivalent spacing; GIS, geographic information systems; Iap, anisotropy index at the variogram plateau; Ias, anisotropy index at the smallest
distance between observations; IDW, inverse distance weighting; IDW3, inverse distance weighting with 3 neighbors; IDW12, inverse distance
weighting with 12 neighbors; MAE, mean absolute error; Max, maximum; ME, mean error; Med, median; Min, minimum; MRBF, multiquadratic
radial basis function; n, number of data points; n
gen
, number of data points in the DEM generation sub-set; N/S, nugget/sill ratio; n
valid
, number of
observations in the DEM validation sub-set; OK, ordinary kriging; RMSE, root mean square error; RST, regularized spline with tension; S, slope
gradient (in %); S.D., standard deviation; UK, universal kriging; USDMA, United States Defense Mapping Agency; Z, elevation above sea level
(in m); Z

, estimated elevation above sea level (in m).

Corresponding author. Centre IRD d'le de France, 32, avenue Henri Varagnat-93143 Bondy Cedex, France. Tel.: +33 1 48 02 55 37; fax: +33 1
48 02 55 34.
E-mail address: chaplot@bondy.ird.fr (V. Chaplot).
0169-555X/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2005.12.010
interactions with spatial scale, landform types, and data density. These results indicate that the accuracy of interpolation
techniques for DEM generation should be tested not only in relation to landform types and data density but also to their
applicability to multi-scales.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: DEM; Interpolation method; Sampling density; Landform type; Spatial scale
1. Introduction
A digital elevation model (DEM) is a numerical
representation of topography, usually made up of
equal-sized grid cells, each with a value of elevation.
Its simple data structure and widespread availability
have made it a popular tool for land characterization.
Because topography is a key parameter controlling the
function of natural ecosystems, DEMs are highly
useful to deal with ever-increasing environmental
issues.
Since many GIS applications rely on DEMs, their
intrinsic quality is critical, particularly for hydrologic
modeling (e.g., Beven and Kirkby, 1979; O'Loughlin,
1986; Darboux et al., 2002) or soil distribution
analysis (e.g., Bloschl and Sivalapan, 1995; Chaplot
et al., 2000; McBratney et al., 2003). The applications
of DEMs are very diverse, ranging from basin
characterization which requires the investigation of
large areas, to the evaluation of water pounding
capacity at the clod level that requires very accurate
height estimates. The development of numerical
representations of landscapes over large areas with a
high-resolution DEM is thus one of the most
important scientific challenges of environmental
studies.
Several factors affect the quality of DEMs. An
initial source of errors can be attributed to the data
collection. The quality of the estimation of height for
each data point depends on the technology applied.
Some of the methods available include the ground-
based or airborne automatic laser scanner which is of
a very high resolution and suitable for relatively small
areas (Darboux and Huang, 2003); conventional
topographic surveys with a laser theodolite used at
the meso-scale and with a centimetric accuracy; and
use of existing contour maps, stereoscopic air-photos
or high-resolution satellite imagery for the character-
ization of large areas (Toutin and Cheng, 2002; Poon
et al., 2005).
The use of DEMs generated from low-density
altitude data points may result in over-estimations of
secondary topographic attributes such as the upslope
contributing area (Quinn et al., 1991; Zhang and
Montgomery, 1994; Brasington and Richards, 1998)
and the underestimation of slope gradient (Chaplot et
al., 2000; Thompson et al., 2001; Toutin, 2002). Other
sources of error include the spatial structure of altitude
and the interpolation technique for DEM generation
(e.g., Wood and Fisher, 1993; Wilson and Gallant,
2000).
The topographic modeler must be particularly
careful when selecting the technique for interpolation
between the initial sampling data points of altitude,
as this could have a great effect on the quality of
DEMs. Many interpolation techniques exist. The
question of which is the most appropriate in different
contexts is the central question and has stimulated
several comparative studies of interpolation accuracy
(e.g. Weber and Englund, 1992, 1994; Carrara et al.,
1997; Robeson, 1997). The existing literature, how-
ever, tends to be equivocal as to which interpolation
technique is the most accurate. Some studies (Creutin
and Obled, 1982; Laslett and McBratney, 1990; Laslett,
1994; Burrough and McDonnell, 1998; Zimmerman et
al., 1999; Wilson and Gallant, 2000) indicate that
among the many existing interpolation techniques,
geostatistical ones perform better than the others. In
particular, Zimmerman et al. (1999) showed that
kriging yielded better estimations of altitude than
inverse distance weighting (IDW) did, irrespective of
the landform type and sampling pattern. This result is
probably due to the ability of kriging to take into
account the spatial structure of data. However, in other
studies (Weber and Englund, 1992; Gallichand and
Marcotte, 1993; Brus et al., 1996; Declercq, 1996;
Aguilar et al., 2005), neighborhood approaches such as
IDW or radial basis functions were as accurate as
kriging or even better.
Among the various studies on the comparison of
techniques for generating digital terrain models, only a
few examined the accuracy of interpolation techniques
in relation to data sample size, sample spacing and
landform types (e.g., Gao, 1997; Aguilar et al., 2005).
Especially the effects of terrain morphologies that
exist in natural landscapes, such as oriented structures
at micro-scales caused by tillage, isotropic fractal
pattern at the meso-scale in response to hydrographic
127 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
processes, and polarized trends at a large-scale due to
tectonics have seldom been investigated (Goodchild
and Mark, 1987; Deschaux and Souriau, 1996).
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the
effects of landform types, the density of original data,
and interpolation techniques on the accuracy of DEM
generation. Five interpolation techniques (inverse
distance weighting, ordinary kriging, universal kriging,
multiquadratic radial basis function, and regularized
spline with tension), commonly used in recent geo-
morphological research (Weber and Englund, 1994;
Zimmerman et al., 1999; Mitas and Mitasova, 1999;
Aguilar et al., 2005), were applied. Their performance
was evaluated using data for a mountainous area of
northern Laos and a gentle landscape of western France
at nested spatial scales: micro-plot, hillslope and
catchment with sampling densities from 3 to 1010
9
points/km
2
. This study provides additional knowledge
to previous work, because in addition to evaluating the
impact of the interpolation technique in relation to
landform types and data density, it considers nested
spatial scales.
Fig. 1. Location and topography of the study sites. Digital elevation models with a 50 m grid resolution of Houay Pano in Laos and La Roche in
France, and locations of detailed topographic investigations (box) are shown.
128 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study sites and topographic characterization
Study sites with nested scales, three in northern Laos
and three in France, were selected (Figs. 1 and 2).
Northern Laos is marked by steep mountainous slopes
with high peaks of about 2500 m, as a result of the
general Himalayan uplift. The Mekong River flows
through this region with some very sharp bends due to
linear geological structures of limestone, shale and
sandstone. The study sites are located in a 22 km
2
catchment of a tributary (the Houay Pano) of the
Mekong River (Fig. 1). The Houay Pano catchment
shows high relief between the narrow flat valley bottom
and ridge crests with an average slope gradient of 32%
(Table 1). The Houay Pano River originates in the
northeast and discharges in the northwest into the
Mekong River at an altitude of 280 m above sea level.
The valley is relatively narrow and mainly oriented
eastwest. Several second-order streams oriented
northsouth and deeply incising the long and steep
slopes' flow into the southern part of Houay Pano
(Fig. 1). The climate is tropical with an average
Fig. 2. Digital elevation models of the study hillslopes and the 1 m
2
micro-plots in Laos (A and B) and in France (C and D). The grid interval of digital
elevation models is 10 m at the hillslope level and 0.01 m for micro-plots.
129 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
annual rainfall of 1600 mm. Within this catchment, a
representative hillslope with a surface area of 0.6 ha
(Fig. 2A) including a 1 m
2
micro-plot (Fig. 2B) was
selected. The hillslope exhibits an average slope
gradient of 50% with rills, gullies and landsides.
This area is shallowly (00.02 m) tilled with a hoe by
farmers for rainfed rice cultivation.
The general topographic characterization of the
Houay Pano catchment is based on the contour lines
of 1:50,000 USDMA topomaps available at the Lao
National Department of Geography. At the hillslope
level, topographic data were obtained by field surveys
using a laser theodolite. The measurements of height
were performed at 815 scattered data points selected by
expert judgment in order to characterize detailed
variations in terrain morphology (Fig. 2A). The vertical
accuracy in height estimation was 1 mm. For the micro-
plot the altitude was measured on a 0.010.01 m grid
with a laser distance-meter whose vertical accuracy is
0.5 mm (Fig. 2B).
The study sites of western France are located in a
8 km
2
catchment (Fig. 1) constituting the upper
catchment of the La Roche River which directly
discharges into the Atlantic Ocean. This river flows
through moderately elevated landscapes composed of
Proterozoic and Paleozoic metamorphic and granitic
rocks. The study catchment has an oceanic climate
(average annual rainfall of 900 mm) and gentle slopes
(mean slope gradient of 7%, Table 1), and the
agriculture there is oriented towards dairy cattle
farming, corn and winter wheat production with
mechanical tillage. Within the upper part of the
catchment, a representative hillslope of 0.8 ha (Fig.
2C) and a 1 m
2
micro-plot on the hillslope (Fig. 2D)
were selected for analysis.
The topographic information of the La Roche
catchment was extracted from the contour lines of
1:25,000 topomaps of the National Geographic Institute
database. The topographic characterization of the
hillslope was achieved using a laser theodolite, with
615 altitude measurements (Fig. 2C). Topographic
measurements over the micro-plot of 1 m
2
(Fig. 2D)
were performed on the common seedbed of winter wheat
with a ridge-and-furrowmorphology, using an automatic
laser scanner (Darboux and Huang, 2003). Heights were
acquired automatically along a 0.010.01 m grid, with a
vertical accuracy of 0.5 mm.
2.2. Selection of topographic sub-data sets
Three-dimensional coordinates (x, y, z) of points
extracted from the contour lines of the topomaps were
used to derive DEMs for both catchments. At the 22 km
2
catchment of Laos, the initial data set originated from
contour line digitalization was composed of 8850 data
points, corresponding to a sampling density (D) of about
400 points/km
2
and an equivalent sampling distance
(ES) of 50 m (Table 2). From this initial set of data, five
data sets with ES from 100 m to 500 m were obtained by
data thinning. Each data set was divided into sub-data
sets for DEM generation (n
gen
) and validation (n
val
)
based on random sampling (Table 2). For each data set,
25 to 100 data points were selected for validation. A
similar procedure was followed for the 8 km
2
catchment
of France resulting in five data sets with ES between
50 m and 300 m (Table 2).
The initial data sets for the French and Lao hillslopes
were composed of 615 and 415 data points which
corresponded to an ES of 10 m. These data sets were
degraded to those with an ES of 20 m (Table 2). For each
data set, 25 and 50 data points were devoted to the
validation of DEMs (Table 2).
On the 1 m
2
micro-plots, altitudes for some points
could not be measured accurately due to imperfect laser
reflection. Therefore, 7569 measurements of height in
Laos and 8486 in France were used for analysis (Table
2). Following a similar procedure as that at the
catchment and hillslope levels, six data sets were
obtained by data thinning and each of them was divided
into generation and validation subsets based on random
Table 1
Slope gradient (S) and general statistics of the altitude at the study sites of Laos and France
Country Landform Area (km
2
) S (%) Min (m) Max (m) Av (m) Med (m) S.D. (m) CV (%) N/S Ias Iap
Laos Catchment 22 32 280 1331 604 521 253 78 0.01 0.13 0.16
Hillslope 610
3
50 513 588 545 545 18 55 0.01 0.28 0.16
Micro-plot 110
6
45 0 0.17 0.139 0.135 0.017 12 0.10 0.66 0.24
France Catchment 8 7 44 228 161 173 45 38 0.01 0.45 0.24
Hillslope 810
3
5 187 209 198 198 4 34 0.02 1.00 0.24
Micro-plot 110
6
5 0 0.064 0.0322 0.0324 0.001 34 0.84 0.28 0.83
Min: minimum; Max: maximum; Av: average; Med: median; S.D.: standard deviation; CV: coefficient of variation; Ias: the anisotropy index at the
smallest distance between observations; Iap: the anisotropy index at the variogram plateau.
130 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
selection. The data sets with ES from 0.01 m to 0.1 m
were generated at both micro-plots (Table 2). The
sampling densities (D) for DEM generation at the Lao
micro-plot (7410
6
to 969210
6
points/km
2
) were of
the same order as that at the French plot (6610
6
and
909510
6
points/km
2
). For each data set, 25 to 300 data
points were chosen for validation (Table 2).
2.3. Data set characterization
For each study site, minimum (Min), maximum
(Max), average (Av), median (Med), standard deviation
(S.D.), and coefficient of variation (CV) of heights were
computed from the initial set of data. The spatial
structure of altitudes was assessed using variograms for
directions of 0, 45, 90 and 135 from the reference
direction, which was the steepest slope for the Lao
micro-plot, perpendicular to the tillage direction for the
French micro-plot, and geographic north for the other
data sets.
The nugget sill ratio (N/S), defining the proportion of
short-range variability that cannot be described by a
geostatistical model based on a variogram, was used to
quantify the strength of the spatial structure of height.
Strengths vary from weak (N/SN0.6), medium (0.3bN/
Sb0.6) to strong (N/Sb0.3) (Cambardella and Karlen,
1999; Kravchenko, 2003). For example, a ratio of 0.3
means that 30% of the altitude variability consists of
unexplainable or random variations. Two other indices
were generated for this study to express the level of
anisotropy of altitude data with different densities;
namely the ratio between the minimum and maximum
semi-variances observed at any direction at the smallest
distance between observations (Ias) and that at the
variograms' plateaus (Iap). Ias and Iap vary from 0 to 1,
and a value of 1 means a perfect isotropy of altitude.
2.4. Data set interpolations
In this study, we selected some interpolation
techniques with local neighborhood or geostatistical
approaches as those commonly used in geomorpholog-
ical research (e.g., Mitas and Mitasova, 1999). Techni-
ques include inverse distance weighting (IDW),
Table 2
Numbers and densities of data in each study area
Country Landform Area (km
2
) Data set number Number of observations D (point/km
2
) ES (m)
n
tot
n
gen
n
val
Laos Catchment 22 1 8850 8750 100 398 50
22 2 2222 2122 100 96 100
22 3 988 888 100 40 150
22 4 562 512 50 23 200
22 5 248 223 25 10 300
22 6 91 66 25 3 500
Hillslope 610
3
1 415 365 50 6110
3
10
610
3
2 207 182 25 3010
3
20
Micro-plot 110
6
1 7569 7269 300 969210
6
0.01
110
6
2 1892 1792 100 238910
6
0.02
110
6
3 871 771 100 102810
6
0.03
110
6
4 485 435 50 58010
6
0.04
110
6
5 325 275 50 36610
6
0.05
110
6
6 81 56 25 7410
6
0.1
France Catchment 8 1 3155 3055 100 394 50
8 2 794 694 100 99 100
8 3 348 248 100 43 150
8 4 195 145 50 24 200
8 5 90 65 25 11 300
Hillslope 810
3
1 615 565 50 7110
3
10
810
3
2 282 257 25 3210
3
20
Micro-plot 110
6
1 8486 8186 300 909510
6
0.01
110
6
2 2088 1988 100 220810
6
0.02
110
6
3 998 898 100 99710
6
0.03
110
6
4 508 458 50 50810
6
0.04
110
6
5 336 286 50 31710
6
0.05
110
6
6 85 60 25 6610
6
0.1
n
tot
: number of data; n
gen
: total number of data used for DEM generation; n
val
: number of data used for validation; D: data sampling density and; ES:
equivalent regular spacing between observations.
131 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
ordinary kriging (OK), universal kriging (UK), multi-
quadratic radial basis function (MRBF), and regularized
spline with tension (RST). All these methods use the
locations and values at sampling points to estimate the
variable of interest at unmeasured locations such as the
center of each grid cell in a raster data.
IDWestimates altitudes at unknown points using the
distance and values to nearby known points, based on
the assumption that each point influences the resulting
surface up to a finite distance (Mitas and Mitasova,
1999). In IDW, the weight of each sample point is in
inverse proportion to a power of distance. Any number
Fig. 3. Directional variograms of altitude computed over the 22 km
2
catchment of Laos (A), the 8 km
2
catchment of France (B), the 0.60.8 ha
hillslopes of Laos (C) and France (D) and the Lao and French 1 m
2
micro-plots (E and F).
132 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
of points, up to all the points in the sample, may be used
for estimation. A larger number of sample points results
in a smoother surface (Fisher et al., 1987) but a larger
computational cost. In this study, we used a power of 2
to determine the weight from distance, and either 3
(IDW3) or 12 (IDW12) data points, without a fixed
radius for data sampling.
Interpolations by kriging are thoroughly described in
the literature (e.g. Matheron, 1963; Burgess et al., 1981;
Myers, 1993, 1994). Kriging is a geostatistical method
that takes into account both the distance and the degree
of variation between known data points. The extent to
which this assumption is true can be examined in the
computed variogram. Several types of kriging are
available including ordinary, simple, universal and
block kriging. In this study, we employed ordinary
kriging (OK) and universal kriging (UK) using a full
second-order polynomial drift function as is common
practice. Instead of weighting nearby data points by
some power of their inverted distance, OK relies on the
spatial correlation structure of the data to determine the
weighting values. It takes into account the correlations
between data points in order to determine the estimated
value at an unsampled point, whereas UK assumes the
mean to be a deterministic function. For both techni-
ques, the interpolation procedure was preceded by the
selection of a suitable variogram model specific to each
data set. This was accomplished by fitting each of
several theoretical variogram models (e.g., linear,
Gaussian, spherical, and exponential) to the empirical
ones using the least-square method.
Radial basis functions include thin plate spline,
spline with tension, multiquadratic, inverse multiqua-
dratic, and completely regularized spline. They are
based on the assumption that the interpolation function
should pass (or pass closely to) the data points and at the
same time should be as smooth as possible (Talmi and
Gilat, 1977). We used the methods of the multiquadratic
Table 3
Mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE) between estimated and observed altitudes at the validation set of the catchment in Laos and
France for different interpolation techniques (IDW3 and IDW12: inverse distance weighting with 3 and 12 neighbors; OK and UK: ordinary and
universal kriging; MRBF: multiquadratic radial basis function; and RST: regularized spline with tension) and for different equivalent spacing
values (ES)
ES IDW3 IDW12 OK (m) UK MRBF RST
Laos
ME
50 1.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 1.5 0.2
100 0.0 2.5 1.3 1.5 2.2 0.5
150 1.4 7.2

0.0 4.4 9.5 0.1

200 0.5 8.9

4.7 3.5 4.3 4.5

300 5.1 6.2 8.8 8.0 0.9 13.0
500 29.6

26.0

34.2

23.8

31.4

38.2

RMSE
50 4.7 4.1 2.1 1.6 1.5 1.3
100 10.0 12.7 6.4 12.6 9.9 6.4
150 17.5 18.8 0.0 20.8 30.0 13.3
200 24.0 24.7 17.7 27.8 19.6 16.2
300 45.9 41.4 37.5 37.2 24.6 35.3
500 59.3 67.0 56.4 69.0 52.4 66.6
France
ME
50 0.14 0.19 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.09
100 0.28 0.32 0.15 0.08 0.14 0.04
150 0.1 0.07 0.01 0.03 0.07 0.07
200 0.83 0.83 0.25 0.42 0.60 0.38
300 1.30 1.17 1.20 0.70 1.04 0.32
RMSE
50 1.25 1.35 0.89 0.68 0.94 0.52
100 1.28 1.39 0.99 0.69 0.93 0.46
150 2.30 3.40 1.01 0.75 1.02 0.54
200 6.58 7.30 0.78 0.58 3.03 4.28
300 8.50 8.35 3.23 1.86 4.23 6.34

Marked differences significant at pb0.05.

133 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
radial basis function (MRBF) (Franke, 1982) and the
regularized spline with tension (RST) (Mitasova and
Mitas, 1993). MRBF was shown to yield accurate
results in terms of both the statistics and reliability of the
modeled surface even in the case of large and scattered
data sets (e.g., Lazzaro and Montefusco, 2002). A
second-order polynomial was used for our analysis.
RST, which is a commonly used method (Mitas and
Mitasova, 1999), is flexible through the choice of the
tension parameter which controls the properties of the
interpolation function and the smoothing parameter
which enables noise filtering. Following Mitasova and
Hofierka (1993), we set the weight of the third
derivatives of the surface in the curvature minimization
expression to 0.1, and used 12 data points.
2.5. Quality assessment of DEMs
Several methods have been proposed for the
assessment of the quality of DEMs. Desmet (1997)
defines DEM accuracy as a compromise between
precision and shape reliability. Precision is usually
evaluated by indices with no spatial dimension such as
the mean error (ME), the mean absolute error (MAE) or
the root mean square error (RMSE) whereas shape
reliability is evaluated through statistical analysis of a
parameter set characterizing the spatial properties of a
surface such as roughness, slope and curvature. In this
study, estimated height (Z

) from the selected interpo-

lation technique was compared at each point to observed
height (Z) using ME and RMSE:
ME
1
n
X
n
i1
Z*Z 1
RMSE
1
n
X
n
i1
Z*Z
2
" #
0:5
: 2
In addition, t-tests for dependent samples were
performed for evaluating differences between estimated
and observed heights at the validation data points.
Table 4
Mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE) between
estimated and observed altitude at the validation set of the Lao and
French hillslopes for the different interpolation techniques (IDW3 and
IDW12: inverse distance weighting with 3, or 12 neighbors; OK and
UK: ordinary or universal kriging; MRBF: multiquadratic radial basis
function; and RST: regularized spline with tension) for the different
equivalent spacing (ES) and associated data sample densities
ES IDW3 IDW12 OK (m) UK MRBF RST
Laos
ME
10 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.3
20 0.3 0.3 0.0 0.1 0.3 0.8
RMSE
10 1.2 1.1 1.2 1.0 1.0 1.8
20 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.1 1.6 1.8
France
ME
10 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.06 0.01 0.14
20 0.15 0.25 0.19 0.12 0.21 0.07
RMSE
10 0.34 0.34 0.30 0.44 0.37 0.33
20 0.44 0.44 0.35 0.47 0.40 0.40
No differences are significant at pb0.05.
Table 5
Mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE) between
estimated and observed altitudes at the validation set on 1 m
2
in Laos
and France for the different interpolation techniques (IDW3 and
IDW12: inverse distance weighting with 3, or 12 neighbors; OK and
UK: ordinary or universal kriging; MRBF: multiquadratic radial basis
function; and RST: regularized spline with tension) the different
equivalent spacing (ES)
ES
(m)
IDW3 IDW12 OK
(mm)
UK
(mm)
MRBF RST
Laos
ME
0.01 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
0.02 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.7 0.7
0.03 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.8
0.04 1.7 1.7 1.2 1.8 1.6 0.1
0.05 1.3 1.2 1.1 1.2 1.2 0.8
0.1 0.6 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.6
RMSE
0.01 2.3 2.3 2.2 2.4 2.1 2.5
0.02 2.8 3 2.6 3.1 2.9 2.9
0.03 3.4 3.3 3.1 3.6 3.5 4.0
0.04 3.9 3.9 3.8 4.0 4 4.9
0.05 4.2 4.2 3.8 4.7 3.9 5.7
0.1 6.0 5.9 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.9
France
ME
0.01 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
0.02 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.1
0.03 0.1 0.1 0 0.3 1.5 0.6
0.04 0.5 0.8 1.0 0.9 0.4 0
0.05 2.3 2.8 2.8 3.1 10.0

1.5
0.1 4.5

4.1

3.9

3.0 1.3 0.3

RMSE
0.01 3.1 3.1 3.3 3.2 3.5 3.7
0.02 4.7 4.8 5.4 5.2 4.5 4.7
0.03 5.6 6.6 7.9 7.5 7.9 4.8
0.04 7.0 7.7 8.6 8.7 5.8 5.5
0.05 8.2 8.8 9.0 9.5 13.3

6.3
0.1 6.7

7.1

7.2

6.9 5.3 6.3

Marked differences are significant at pb0.05.

134 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
3. Results
3.1. Terrain morphology of the study sites
The general statistics of the altitude at the study sites
of Laos and France, based on the obtained elevation
data, are presented in Table 1. In Laos, altitudes over the
22 km
2
catchment of the Houay Pano vary from 280 to
1331 m with a median of 521 m. Greater altitudes
(N800 m) occur in the southern part with limestone
cliffs. With an altitude range of 1051 m and a coefficient
of variation (CV) of 78%, this catchment exhibits the
greatest altitude variability of all the sites. The average
slope gradient is 32% but with great spatial variations. A
marked asymmetry is observed between the north area
with short gentle hillslopes and the south area with long,
steep (locally N100%) slopes (Fig. 1). From the
directional variograms shown in Fig. 3A, we learn that
altitude data at the Houay Pano catchment are
characterized by a strong spatial structure (N/S=0.01)
and a marked anisotropy. The anisotropy was the
greatest between the geographic North (0) character-
ized by a high variability of altitudes and the eastwest
direction (90) of lower variability. Such anisotropy was
observed at all distances between observations (Ias and
Iapb0.2). The French catchment also exhibited a strong
spatial structure (N/S=0.01) but a strong anisotropy
only at larger distances between observations (Fig. 3B;
Table 1).
The altitudes of the two study hillslopes are from 513
to 588 m in Laos and from 187 to 209 m in France (Fig.
2). Both sites exhibited a medium coefficient of
Fig. 4. Root mean absolute error (RMSE) of altitude estimation as function of the equivalent spacing (ES) for different interpolation techniques
(inverse distance weighting, IDW; ordinary kriging, OK; universal kriging, UK; multiquadratic radial basis function, MRBF, and regularized spline
with tension, RST) at the 22 km
2
catchment of Laos (A), 8 km
2
catchment of France (B); and 1 m
2
micro-plots of Laos (C) and France (D).
135 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
variation and a strong spatial structure of altitude (N/
S0.02) (Table 1). A high anisotropy at all distances
was observed in Laos (Fig. 3C; Ias =0.28; Iap=0.16)
whereas at the French hillslope altitudes were isotropic
at small distances (Ias =1.00) but anistrotropic at greater
ones (Iap=0.24) (Fig. 3D).
Fig. 5. Estimated altitude (Z

) versus observed altitude (Z) for inverse distance weighting with 3 points (IDW3); universal kriging (UK) and;
regularized spline with tension (RST) applied to the Lao (A) and French (B) catchments for an equivalent spacing of 200 m, and at the Lao (C) and
French (D) hillslopes for an equivalent spacing of 20 m. Mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE) of estimations are shown.
136 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
At the Lao micro-plot, the altitude range is rela-
tively large (170 mm) but altitude variability is low
(CV=12%). Altitudes are greater in the northwest
corner of the plot and gradually decrease to the southern
part (Fig. 2B) resulting in a strong spatial structure of
altitudes (N/S=0.1). In addition, a marked anisotropy
between the 0 direction of low altitude variability and
the other directions of greater altitude variations is
Fig. 6. Estimated altitude (Z

) versus observed altitude (Z) for inverse distance weighting with 3 points (IDW3); universal kriging (UK); and
regularized spline with tension (RST) applied to the Lao 1 m
2
micro-plot and for an equivalent spacing of 0.01 m (A) and 0.05 m (B) and at the French
micro-plot at an equivalent spacing of 0.01 m (C) and 0.05 m (D). Mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE) of estimations are shown.
137 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
observed (Fig. 3E). At the French micro-plot, the
altitude range was 64 mm with a median of 3.2 mm
and a coefficient of variation of 34% (Table 1). As can
be seen in Fig. 2D, tillage induced a hedge and furrow
morphology with similar height values distributed along
parallel eastwest bands of about 0.12 m in width. This
resulted in an overall weak spatial structure of altitude
(N/S=1.25) with however a high anisotropy at short
distances (Ias =0.28) (Table 1; Fig. 3F).
3.2. Accuracy of interpolation techniques for altitude
estimation
The mean error (ME) and the root mean square error
(RMSE) between estimations and observations of
altitude at the study sites are presented in Tables 35
and in Fig. 4. In the Lao catchment, ME ranged between
38 and 8.0 m and RMSE varied between 1.3 and 69 m
(Table 3). Except for ES=500 m with significant
differences between estimations and observations of
height, the techniques seem to be accurate (Fig. 5A;
RMSE was less than 7% of the height range).
Irrespective of the technique, lower ME and RMSE
occurred at the smallest ES. Prediction errors increase
only slightly with increasing ES from 50 to 200 m, but
they increase more rapidly if ES is larger than 200 m
(Fig. 4A). For the smallest ES, few differences existed
between the techniques, although RST performed best
(ME=0.2; RMSE=1.3m). RSTwas closely followed by
MRBF in terms of RMSE (1.5 m) and UK (1.6 m), while
the other techniques exhibited prediction errors over 2 m
(Table 3). Surprisingly, a relatively large data scattering
is found at ES=150 m (Table 3; Fig. 4A). For ES over
the 200 m threshold, MRBF was the most accurate.
At the French catchment, altitude predictions varied
between RMSE=0.52 m for RSTat ES=50 m and 8.5 m
for IDW3 at ES=300 m, and all cases can be regarded as
reasonably accurate (Fig. 5B). Whereas few differences
existed among the techniques at lower ES, differences
augmented significantly with increasing ES (Fig. 4B).
The range of RMSE among techniques was 0.8 m at
ES=50 m, but 6.6 m at ES=300 m. RST and UK
yielded close estimations at lower ES, and UK was
much better for ESN150 m (Table 3). It is interesting to
note that errors sharply increased for ES over 100 m for
IDW, over 150 m for MRFB and RST and over 200 m
for OK (Fig. 4B).
At the hillslope level, the estimations of height were
generally accurate irrespective of the sampling density
and the technique (Fig. 5C,D). The average RMSE was
1.3 m in Laos and 0.4 m in France (Table 4) which was
in both cases less than 2% of the altitude range. The
prediction quality of altitude was only slightly better at
greater sampling density. In Laos, UK and MRBF
produced the most accurate and unbiased estimations at
ES=10 m. At greater ES, the two geostatistic techniques
yielded better estimates (Table 4). In France, irrespec-
tive of ES, OK provided the most accurate results
Table 6
RMSE rank of the prediction techniques (IDW3 and IDW12: inverse distance weighting with 3 and 12 neighbors; OKand UK: ordinary and universal
kriging; MRBF: multiquadratic radial basis function; and RST: regularized spline with tension) for different spatial scales and equivalent spacing (ES)
Country Landform Area (km
2
) ES (m) IDW3 IDW12 OK UK MRBF RST
Lower ES
Laos Catchment 22 50 6 5 4 3 2 1
Hillslope 610
3
10 4 3 4 1 1 6
Micro-plot 110
6
0.01 3 3 2 5 1 6
Average 4.3 3.7 3.3 3.0 1.3 4.3
France Catchment 8 50 5 6 3 2 4 1
Hillslope 810
3
10 3 3 1 6 5 2
Micro-plot 110
6
0.01 1 1 4 3 5 6
Average 3.0 3.3 2.7 3.7 4.7 3.0
Higher ES
Laos Catchment 22 300 6 5 4 3 1 2
Hillslope 610
3
20 3 3 1 2 5 6
Micro-plot 110
6
0.05 3 3 1 5 2 6
Average 4.0 3.7 2.0 3.3 2.7 4.7
France Catchment 8 300 6 5 2 1 3 4
Hillslope 810
3
20 4 4 1 6 2 2
Micro-plot 110
6
0.05 2 3 4 5 6 1
Average 4.0 4.0 2.3 4.0 3.7 2.3
138 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
whereas at greater ES, RST, which was slightly less
accurate than OK, yielded the least biased estimates
(Table 4).
At the micro-plot level, ME and RMSE computed
from the validation sets indicate that the best estimations
occurred at lower ES, i.e. greater sampling densities, for
which few differences existed among the interpolation
techniques (Table 5). At ES=0.01 m, RMSE ranged
from 2.1 to 2.5 mm in Laos and from 3.1 to 3.7 mm in
France. Such a RMSE range among techniques of
0.3 mm in Laos and 0.7 mm in France was very low
compared with the total altitude range of 150 and
62 mm, respectively.
At the Lao micro-plot, the techniques under study
seem to be all accurate and yielded unbiased estimations
(Table 5). RMSE was small, ME was close to 0, and
altitudes at validation data points exhibited a relatively
low scattering and were evenly distributed along the line
of zero difference (Fig. 6A,B). At ES=0.01 m, MRBF
was the most accurate (RMSE of 2.1 mm). It was
followed by OK and IDW whereas at ES=0.1 m,
kriging techniques yielded the best estimates. RMSE
increased with increasing ES and differences between
techniques remain low, except for ES=0.05 m with
greater variability and RST which was much less
accurate for ES over 0.03 m (Fig. 4C).
At the French micro-plot, the best estimations at
ES=0.01 m were given by IDW (RMSE=3.1 mm for
IDW3 and IDW12) followed by UK and OK (Table 5).
Over 0.02 m, lower prediction errors were obtained by
using RST. Whereas the techniques under study
produced relatively close estimates at ES0.02 m, the
differences in altitude estimates increased above this
threshold (Fig. 4D). Errors of MRBF were highly
variable with a poor estimation at ES=0.05 m but much
better at 0.1 m. Although RST and IDW yielded
unbiased estimations with points evenly distributed
around the line of zero difference (Fig. 6C), the
estimation by OK was biased at higher altitudes. At
ES=0.1 m, MRBF and RST were the most accurate
techniques in terms of RMSE, but with systematically
underestimated altitudes (Table 5, Fig. 6D). At this ES
value, RST was much less unbiased than UK and IDW.
The data scattering along the line of zero difference for
the French micro-plot was much larger than that of the
Lao micro-plot (Fig. 6).
Table 6 presents the rank of the average RMSE of
each interpolation technique for each study site. At
lower ES for each spatial scale in Laos, MRBF with an
average rank of 1.3 performed well through scales,
whereas in France, OK was the most suitable for multi-
scale interpolations. In France, RST performed also well
for the hillslope and catchment, whereas IDW was the
most accurate for the micro-plot. At greater ES for each
spatial scale, OK performed well over scales both in
Laos and France, and RST also performed well in
France, especially for the micro-plot.
4. Discussion
Irrespective of the landscape morphology and surface
area, few differences existed between the techniques
under study provided that the sampling density was
high. This could have been foreseen since the greater the
sampling density is, the lower the impact of the
interpolation technique is, simply due to the mechanical
decrease of space between known values. The result is
in accordance with those of Borga and Vizzaccaro
(1997) and Lazzaro and Montefusco (2002). For lower
values of sampling density, the accuracy of height
estimation is more dependent on the choice of
interpolation techniques. The overall accuracy of
kriging for the French sites with different scales
confirms previous observations of Kravchenko (2003)
who indicated the broad applicability of kriging.
However, kriging requires the correct adjustment of a
model to the variogram which may be time-consuming
and such an adjustment is recommended only when it is
absolutely necessary (Mardikis et al., 2005).
The fact that kriging did not perform well on the 1 m
2
plot in France can be explained from the characteristic
hedge and furrow morphology unable to be modeled by
classic geostatistics. The lower performance of kriging
for the mountainous catchment in Laos than the radial
basis functions may also be explained from long and
regular slopes and similar levels of anisotropy at both
small and large distances, for which minimum-curvature
surfaces were already shown to perform well (Myers,
1994). We also have to consider that the sampling
densities applied to this study are relatively high
compared to those used in studies showing a greater
benefit of kriging (Franke, 1982; McBratney and
Webster, 1983).
IDW was the only technique to allow points collected
from oriented hedge and furrow structures in the French
micro-plot to be interpolated with low errors. The
technique takes into account only some adjacent data
points, and thus performs well even for complex
landforms if data density is high (Fisher et al., 1987).
However, IDW and RST did not perform well through
various scales, probably due to their inability to model
the spatial structure of data. In other words, these
methods are suitable for some specific conditions, and
their general applicability is limited.
139 V. Chaplot et al. / Geomorphology 77 (2006) 126141
5. Conclusions
This study evaluated the accuracy of several
interpolation techniques (inverse distance weighting,
IDW; ordinary kriging, OK; universal kriging, UK;
multiquadratic radial basis function, MRBF; and
regularized spline with tension, RST) for generating
DEMs of nested scales: micro-plot, hillslope and
catchment. Different landform types and density values
of height measurement were considered.
Irrespective of the surface area, landscape morphol-
ogy and sampling density, few differences existed
between the employed interpolation techniques if the
sampling density was high. At lower sampling densities,
in contrast, the performance of the techniques tended to
vary. Kriging yielded better estimates if the spatial
structure of altitude was strong. When the spatial
structure of height was weak as observed at the French
micro-plot, IDW and RST performed better. MRBF
performed well in the mountainous areas of Laos
irrespective of spatial scales, whereas in the smooth
landscape of France, OK was the best for multi-scales
interpolations. These results may help GIS specialists to
select the best method for the generation of DEMs. A
technique should be chosen not only for its performance
on a specific landform type and data density, but also for
its applicability to a wide range of spatial scales.
Further studies have to be performed to establish a
standard to appropriately select interpolation techniques
for DEM creation. For example, the high potential of
some interpolation techniques for multi-scales topo-
graphic characterization, indicated by our study, needs
additional exploration. In particular, DEM quality
should be examined through the assessment of primary
and secondary DEM derivatives such as slope angle,
slope curvature, drainage network and catchment
boundaries, because many GIS applications rely on
them. These attributes would be more sensitive to the
selection of the interpolation technique than the altitude
itself. Moreover, the effects of the interpolation
technique and sampling density of altitude data on the
accuracy of hydrologic and soil distribution modeling
need to be evaluated.
Acknowledgements
Data collection was assisted by the Programme
National de Recherche sur les Zones Humides (PNRZH)
of the French Ministry of Environment, the Manage-
ment Soil Erosion Consortium supported by the Asian
Development Bank, the International Water Manage-
ment Institute, and the Soil Survey and Land Classifi-
cation Center of Laos. We thank G. Dutin, F. Garnier, K.
Xayyathip, J. Tessier, K. Phonmisa for their help with
fieldwork; C. Walter and P. Curmi for their contribution
to this research; C. Valentin, the director of the IRD
research unit 176, and M. Brown for editing a draft of
this paper. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and
Takashi Oguchi for comments and corrections that
helped to improve the paper.
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