Effects of DEM Generating Algorithms on Water Retention Calculations in Polders – A Case Study

Digital Elevation Models have been an important topic in the last decades in order to accurately describe one’s surroundings for various purposes. The most wide-spread applications of Digital Elevation Modelling are related to volumetric calculations over large areas, as well as to hydrographic simulations. This paper will analyse the impact of various data interpolation models on the result of volumetric calculations in a longitudinal shaped polder. In order to achieve general conclusions instead of case specific solutions, the raw parametric Digital Elevation Models have been used, rather than the specific parameters suiting the actual scenario. In order to achieve this, data smoothing has also been neglected. The result of the conducted study presents the impact of the digital elevation modelling methods over the volumetric calculations. When applied to the same dataset, the methods yielded different results, partially confirming the predicted usefulness of the algorithms.