Lineament Extraction from Open-Source Digital Elevation Models: a Comparative Analysis

The extraction of lineaments from Digital Elevation Models plays an important role in inhospitable and inaccessible mountain forest areas. In this study, the lineaments extracted from different data acquisition techniques; stereo pairs (ALOS (30m), ASTER (30m), CARTOSAT (30m)), and InSAR (SRTM (30m, 90m), TanDEM-X (90m)) are compared. There is a quantifiable difference in the extracted lineaments from 30m and 90m resolution DEMs due to the different data acquisition methods and processing algorithms used. CARTOSAT provides a more number of lineaments than other DEMs. The length of the lineaments extracted is inversely proportional to the vertical accuracy of the DEM over the region. All the DEMs have a consistency in the orientation of the lineament extracted. The DEMs generated from stereo-images have shown higher lineament density than the DEMs acquired through the InSAR technique. This study shows the difference in the lineament extracted from the same resolution DEMs acquired through various acquisition techniques and helps in the selection of suitable DEM for lineament extraction in the dense forest area.