Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
DOI 10.1007/s00477-012-0577-x
ORIGINAL PAPER
Evaluating DEM source and resolution uncertainties in the Soil
and Water Assessment Tool
Shengpan Lin • Changwei Jing • Neil A. Coles •
Vincent Chaplot • Nathan J. Moore •
Jiaping Wu
Published online: 1 March 2012
Ó Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract DEMs as important input parameters of envi-
ronmental risk assessment models are notable sources of
uncertainties. To illustrate the effect of DEM grid size and
source on model outputs, a widely used watershed manage-
ment model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT),
was applied with two newly available DEMs as inputs (i.e.
ASTER GDEM Version 1, and SRTM Version 4.1). A DEM
derived from 1:10,000 high resolution digital line graph
(DLG) was used as a baseline for comparisons. Eleven
resample resolutions, from 5 to 140 m, were considered to
evaluate the impact of DEM resolution on SWAT outputs.
Results from a case study in South-eastern China indicate
that the SWAT predictions of total phosphorus and total
nitrogen decreased substantially with coarser resample
resolution. A slightly decreasing trend was found in the
SWAT predicted sediment when DEMs were resampled to
coarser resolutions. The SWAT predicted runoff was not
sensitive to resample resolution. For different data sources,
ASTER GDEM did not perform better than SRTM in SWAT
S. Lin  C. Jing  N. J. Moore  J. Wu (&)
College of Environment and Natural Resources,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
e-mail: jw67@zju.edu.cn
N. A. Coles
Centre of Excellence for Ecohydrology, University of Western
Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
V. Chaplot
IRD-BIOEMCO School of Bioresources Engineering
and Environmental Hydrology, University of KwaZulu-Natal,
Scottsville 3209, South Africa
N. J. Moore
Department of Geography, Center for Global Change and Earth
Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
MI 48823, USA
simulations even it was provided with a smaller grid size and
higher vertical accuracy. The predicted outputs based on
ASTER GDEM and SRTM were similar, and much lower
than the ones based on DLG. This study presents potential
uncertainties introduced by DEM resolutions and data
sources, and recommends strategies choosing DEMs based
on research objects and maximum acceptable errors.
Keywords DEM resolution  SWAT 
Model uncertainty  ASTER GDEM  SRTM
1 Introduction
Quantitative models have proven effective for managing
risks for over half a century, and have been and are being
applied in environmental risk management contexts world-
wide. To prepare for better management in environment, we
need fully understand the model uncertainty. Considerable
progress has been seen in the quantification of environmental
model uncertainty in last few decades, and the uncertainty in
model parameters has been emphasised (e.g. Maddalena
et al. 2001; Tarantola et al. 2002; Wagener and Gupta 2005;
Skeffington 2006). DEM-based modelling of watershed
processes has become increasingly popular in environmental
research, mainly due to the advances in availability and
efficiency of DEMs in acquiring topographic properties of
watersheds, such as slope, field slope length, and channel
network. In recent years, many new methods for generating
DEMs of the Earth’s surface have become available, with the
release of the space-borne shuttle radar topography mission
(SRTM) and advanced space-borne thermal emission and
reflection radiometer (ASTER) elevation data sets. The
DEM data from these two space missions cover most of the
populated regions of the world and are publicly and freely
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210 Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221

available at a spatial resolution of 3 arc-seconds for SRTM
and 1 arc-second for ASTER global DEM (ASTER GDEM).
With an increasing availability of DEM data from remote
sensing sources, the problem of data availability appears to
be less important nowadays than a decade ago. However, it
remains difficult for model users to select appropriate DEM
for a specific application. Moreover, the risk of data misuse
increases with more data sources and resample tools.
Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess the impacts
of different data sources and different resample resolutions
of input DEMs on environment models.
The comparison DEMs were from three different data
sets: digital line graph (DLG, 1:10,000 DLG based on local
field survey, 5 m interval, named as DLG 5 m hereafter);
ASTER GDEM (1 arc-second ASTER GDEM Version 1,
approximately 30 m resolution, named as ASTER 30 m
hereafter); and SRTM (3 arc-second SRTM Version 4.1,
approximately 90 m resolution, named as SRTM 90 m
hereafter). In China, high resolution DLG is used as stan-
dard data and was therefore used as a reference data set in
this study. We focused on ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m,
because they were newly available in 2009, easily acces-
sible, free of charge, and probably the most useful global
data sources for regional and global model applications. All
DEMs were resampled to a wide range of resolutions
(5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 90, 100, 120, and 140 m) to
evaluate the resolution impact on model outputs.
1.1 Study area
The study area locates in the Xiekengxi River watershed,
an 81.7 km2 watershed in Lin’an City, Zhejiang Province,
South-eastern China (Fig. 1). Mountains dominate most
parts of the watershed. Based on DLG 5 m data, the ele-
vation of the watershed is 713.4 ± 235.5 m. The major
land use within the watershed is mixed forest, accounting
for 96.0% of total area. Within the watershed, there are six
soil types: 61.1% is Mountain yellowish clayey soil with
moderate infiltration rate; 36.6% is yellowish red soil with
high infiltration rate; the remaining four soil types account
for only 2.2% of the total watershed area (Wei 1993). The
Xiekengxi River watershed is a subbasin of the Tiaoxi
River watershed. The Tiaoxi River flows to the Taihu Lake,
which is the third largest freshwater lake in China and was
noted world-wide for the eutrophication incident in sum-
mer 2007, when millions of people, whose drinking water
was supplied from the Taihu Lake, had no potable water
for several weeks.

Fig. 1 a Location of the

Xiekengxi River watershed
(81.7 km2), b estimated stream
networks derived from DEMs of
different sources (all of which
are in 5 m resample resolution
for comparisons), c stream
networks zooming in on the
rectangle of (b), topographic
maps derived from original
resolution DEMs: d DLG 5 m,
e ASTER 30 m, and f SRTM
90 m

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Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
This paper presents a preliminary study of the Tiaoxi
River watershed simulation that seeks to tackle the ques-
tion of which DEM is suitable for multiple temporal and
spatial process analyses. The Xiekengxi River watershed as
a small subbasin was selected as it had regionally repre-
sentative landscapes of bamboo forestry and nurseries,
which have high cash returns, cover about 20% area of the
Tiaoxi River watershed. Farmers may apply up to five
times as much fertilizers in the bamboo forest areas as used
for regular paddy rice fields. Unlike the paddy fields, which
are flat and bunded along the field boundary, these two land
use/cover types are distributed in relatively steep, hilly
areas and subject to soil erosion. Therefore, they are con-
sidered as potentially major sources of non-point source
pollutions–namely nutrients and sediments.
1.2 Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model
There have been many studies on the effect of grid reso-
lution on terrain derivatives and environmental models,
especially TOPMODEL (e.g. Zhang and Montgomery
1994; Sørensen and Seibert 2007; Lin et al. 2010). To
illustrate the effect of DEM data on model outputs, a
widely used watershed scale model the SWAT (Arnold
et al. 1998) was assessed in this study.
The objective in developing the SWAT model was to
predict the impact of management on water, sediment and
agricultural chemical yields in large ungauged basins
(Arnold et al. 1998). SWAT has been proven to be an
effective tool for assessing water resources and nonpoint
pollution problems (Cheng et al. 2007) for a wide range of
scales and environmental conditions across the globe
(Gassman et al. 2007).
DEM is an important input source for the SWAT model.
The topographic attributes of the subbasins, including area,
slope, and field slope length, are all derived from the DEM.
So are the channel length, slope, width, and depth, if
channels are automatically generated based on DEM but
not previously defined.
In the SWAT model, the watershed is divided into mul-
tiple subbasins based on topographic features of the water-
shed. Topographic attributes (slope, field slope length,
channel length, channel width, etc.) are calculated at the
subbasin level and then assigned for all hydrologic response
units (HRUs) within the subbasin. HRUs that consist of
homogeneous land uses, managements, and soil character-
istics are the basic calculation units. Major model compo-
nents include climate, hydrology, soil temperature, plant
growth, nutrients, pesticides, and land management. The
flow, sediment, and other water contaminants generated
from each HRU in subbasins are integrated and the resulting
loads are routed through channels, ponds and reservoirs to
the watershed outlet. The SWAT model provides two
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methods for estimating surface runoff volume: the SCS
curve number procedure (USDA-SCS 1972) and the Green
and Ampt (1911). The erosion caused by rainfall and surface
runoff is computed with the modified universal soil loss
equation (MUSLE) (Williams 1975). The maximum amount
of sediment that can be transported from a ‘‘reach segment’’
is a function of peak channel velocity. The soluble N and P in
runoff are estimated as products of the volume of water and
average concentrations of N and P in soil layers. Sediment
transport of N and P is calculated with a loading function
developed by McElroy et al. (1976) and modified by Wil-
liams and Hann (1978) for applications to individual runoff
events based on the sediment yield in the HRUs. A complete
description of the SWAT model can be found in Arnold et al.
(1998) and Neitsch et al. (2005).
Several studies have been performed to analyse the sen-
sitivity of the SWAT model outputs on DEM resolutions
(Cotter et al. 2003; Chaplot 2005; Di Luzio et al. 2005; Dixon
and Earls 2009). Cotter et al. (2003) and Chaubey et al.
(2005)evaluated the impact of resample resolution of DEM
(at 30, 100, 150, 200, 300, 500, and 1,000 m) on the uncer-
tainties of the predicted flow, sediment, NO3–N, and total
phosphorus (TP) transport in Moores Creek watershed
(18.9 km2) in Washington County, Arkansas, USA. Their
studies showed that DEM resolution affected the watershed
delineation, stream network and subbasin classification in
the model. A coarser DEM resulted in decreased slopes, and
increased slope lengths. A decrease in DEM resolution
resulted in decreased stream flow, sediment, NO3–N, and TP
load predictions with short-term fluctuations. In the Lower
Walnut Creek watershed (21.8 km2, central Iowa, USA),
Chaplot (2005) evaluated the impact of the mesh size of
DEM (from 20 to 500 m) within the SWAT model to sim-
ulate runoff, sediment, and NO3–N at the outlet of an agri-
cultural watershed, and found that computed sediment, and
NO3–N were more sensitive to DEM resolution than runoff.
Dixon and Earls (2009) compared the SWAT modelled
predicted stream flow at the original and resampled DEMs in
the Charlie Creek drainage basin (855 km2), located in the
Peace River drainage basin of central Florida, USA. The
results indicated that model was indeed sensitive to the data
sources of DEMs: ‘‘original’’ 90 m DEM and 90 m DEM
‘‘resampled’’ from 30 m DEM did not achieve the same
accuracy in stream flow modelling.
The uncertainty of DEM could be caused by the grid
sizes or the data sources, previous studies barely discuss
both of them together. Furthermore The DEMs used in the
previous SWAT model sensitivity studies are mostly con-
tour-based DEMs, few studies focus on DEMs newly
derived from remote sensing. Therefore, there is a need to
evaluate the sensitivity of the SWAT model to the newly
available DEMs (i.e. ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m),
systematically considering the effects of both grid size and
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Table 1 The effect of DEM resolution on the root mean square error (RMSE, m) of the elevation
5m 10 m 20 m 30 m 40 m
DLG 5 m 3.6 3.7 4.4 5.6 7.4
ASTER 30 m 33.3 33.4 33.5 33.1 34.1
SRTM 90 m 57.4 57.5 57.5 57.8 58.0
data source. In this paper, we analyse sensitivity of the
SWAT model annual simulation to three DEM data sources
and eleven resample resolutions.
1.3 DEM dataset
The SRTM 90 m data (Jarvis et al. 2008) is the result of a
collaborative effort by National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), USA, the National Imagery and
Mapping Agency (NIMA), USA, the German space agency,
and Italian space agency. The mission was launched on 11
February 2000 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Data
was collected using two interferometers, C-band and
X-band systems, which cover most land regions between
60N and 56S at 3 arc-second resolution (about 90 m).
Following the first release of a research-grade SRTM data
set in 2004, a variety of post-processed releases were
available. The latest post-processed SRTM is SRTM Ver-
sion 4.1 (SRTM 90 m), released by the Consortium for
Spatial Information of the Consultative Group of Interna-
tional Agricultural Research in 2009. The accuracy repre-
sented as root mean square errors (RMSEs) for early version
of SRTM 90 m varies between 4 and 6 m in low-elevation
terrain and deteriorates to 11–14 m in rugged terrain
(Rodrı́guez et al. 2005). There should be no deterioration in
accuracy for improved version SRTM 4.1. The accuracy of
the new version of SRTM reported by Hirt et al. (2010) is
about 6 m over Western Australia. Up to now, only limited
evaluations have been performed in the new version dataset.
The ASTER 30 m data is a new global 1 arc-second
(about 30 m) elevation data set that was firstly released in
June 2009 by METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry), Japan, and NASA, USA. ASTER 30 m covers
land surfaces between 83N and 83S, which is larger than the
SRTM 90 m coverage. The data used to generate ASTER
30 m were from Visible and near infrared radiometer
(VNIR) Band 3N and 3B (0.76–0.86 l wavelengths). The
overall accuracy of the ASTER 30 m on a global basis is
approximately 9.35 m (average RMSE) (ASTER Validation
Team 2009). However, the accuracy varies in different pla-
ces. ASTER 30 m is considered to be a research-grade
because of a number of artifacts (systematic errors) remain in
the elevation data (ASTER Validation Team 2009). Over
Western Australia, Hirt et al. (2010) reported that the vertical
accuracy of ASTER 30 m (15 m) was worse than SRTM
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Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
60 m 80 m 90 m 100 m 120 m 140 m
11.3 15.5 17.7 19.8 24.3 28.0
34.5 35.8 36.2 37.2 38.4 40.4
58.2 59.2 58.9 60.3 60.4 60.6
90 m (6 m). In Greece, the accuracy of ASTER 30 m is more
than 16.01 m (RMSE) (Chrysoulakis et al. 2011). Reuter
et al. (2009) evaluated five scenes of ASTER 30 m
(N05W02, N40E023, N14W087, N45E008 and S02W079)
using elevation calculated from laser altimeter signal from
NASA’s GLAS/ICESAT platform as the reference. They
found that the RMSE was between 18 and 29 m, whereas
SRTM 90 m had a much lower RMSE (10–15 m). They
strongly suggested that ASTER 30 m product should not be
used for any terrain analysis at 30 m resolution, and one
should refer back to SRTM 90 m data wherever possible.
Vertical accuracies of the input DEM datasets including
DLG 5 m was evaluated with 1,106 geographic control
points which were derived from 1:2,000 scale aerophoto-
grammetry DLG. As shown in Table 1, the DEM accuracy
generally decreased on resampled grid sizes. The RMSE
increased from 3.6 to 28.0 m when the DLG5 m grid size
was resampled from 5 to 140 m. For ASTER 30 m and
SRTM 90 m, it increased from 33.3 to 40.4 m and 57.4 to
60.6 m, respectively. In the resolution range of 5–140 m, the
vertical accuracy of DLG was more accurate than ASTER
30 m, which was more accurate than SRTM 90 m (Table 1).
The accuracies of ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m were lower
than the global evaluation reports, because the check points
were not random GPS points but geographic control points
which usually were extreme value points located on peaks
and valleys. The accuracy of remote-sensing-based DEMs
varies with landform and land cover, and differs from place
to place. Usually, more pits are found in ASTER 30 m than
SRTM 90 m, but in the study area of this paper obvious pits
were found in SRTM 90 m, and ASTER 30 m was more
consistent with DLG 5 m data (Fig. 1d–f). The accuracy of
ASTER 30 m was higher than SRTM 90 m; that was dif-
ferent from some of the previous reports (Hirt et al. 2010;
Reuter et al. 2009).
2 Methodology
2.1 Input data
The following data were selected as SWAT model inputs:
(1) DEM data from three sources: DLG 5 m, ASTER
30 m, and SRTM 90 m. DLG 5 m was of vector
Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
format of DLG at 1: 10,000 scale provided by the
Bureau of Survey and Mapping, Zhejiang Province
with 5 m interval contour lines and 3 m maximum
vertical error, and was different from grid format
STER 30 m and SRTM 90 m. A triangular irregular
networks format DEM was generated from the
original contour lines before resampling to different
resolution DEMs using ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop (ESRI
Inc., Redlands, CA). ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m
were downloaded from International Scientific &
Technical Data Mirror Site, Computer Network
Information Centre, Chinese Academy of Sciences
(http://datamirror.csdb.cn, Accessed on 10 January,
2010). All DEMs were resampled to different reso-
lutions, including 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 90, 100,
120, and 140 m, where 5, 30, and 90 m was (or was
close to) the original resolution for DLG 5 m, ASTER
30 m, and SRTM 90 m, respectively. Except for the
original resolutions, the resample resolution series is
based on a ratio 2 progression in the small scale and
20 m interval in the large scale to obtain 2–3 sample
points between or after the original resolutions. The
resample method was bilinear interpolation using the
Resample tool in ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop (ESRI Inc.,
Redlands, CA). The edge of each DEM was 1 km
outside of the watershed boundary, so that the
watershed boundary definition for each DEM would
not be affected by edge grids. Figure 1 shows the
shaded terrains of original resolution DEMs of DLG
5 m, ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m. Note that it is
not common to interpolate ASTER 30 m or SRTM
90 m to fit a small grid DEM such as 5 m DEM. The
purpose of the down-scaled resampling was to com-
pare with the finest DEM (i.e. DLG 5 m).
(2) Land use/cover in 2008 was interpreted from AVNIR-
2 (advanced visible and near infrared radiometer type
2) images of Advanced Land Observing Satellite with
10 m resolution.
(3) The soil information was digitized from 1:50,000 soil
maps of the Second National Soil Survey in China.
Soil physical and chemical characteristics referred to
Wei (1993).
(4) Ten years (1998–2008) of daily weather gauge data
(precipitation, temperature, solar radiation, wind
speed, and relative humidity) from one station were
provided by Weather Service of Zhejiang Province,
China.
(5) The Xiekengxi River watershed was primarily a
forested watershed (accounting for 96.0% of area)
without significant point source pollutions, so there
was no input data of point source pollutions. Only
0.9% of the area was covered by farm land, and the
crop practices were set as model default values, by
213
which auto fertilization would be applied when soil N
or P concentrations were below the thresholds.
2.2 Model run
SWAT2005 (available on website http://swatmodel.tamu.
edu, Accessed on 29 January, 2010) was used in this study. In
the SWAT model, the watershed is divided into subbasins
based on the topographic features of the watershed derived
from DEMs to preserve the natural flow paths, boundaries,
and channels required for the realistic routing of water,
sediment and chemicals. When evaluating the uncertainties
of the SWAT model outputs on DEM resolution, it is nec-
essary to examine the uncertainties of watershed topographic
parameters as model inputs. Therefore, the following topo-
graphic attributions were compared in this study: mean slope
gradient of subbasins, subbasin area, mean field slope length
of subbasins, reach length of subbasins, mean reach slope of
subbasins, mean reach width of subbasins, and mean reach
depth of subbasins. Because more than one subbasin was in
the watershed, all the watershed topographic attributes were
averaged and weighted by the subbasin areas to simplify
the comparison. Runoff, sediment, total nitrogen (TN),
and TP were the model outputs of interest. Runoff and
sediment could be read from the model output file
directly. TP consisted of organic phosphorus and min-
eral phosphorus. TN consisted of organic nitrogen, nitrate,
nitrite, and ammonium.
It should be noted that model output is affected by both
the change of DEM grid size and the subsequently related
changes of topographic variables. Changes in DEM grid
size also alter other variables such as soil and land cover,
whose grid sizes are resampled at the same resolution as
the DEM by the model GIS interface. This means that
processes like interception, infiltration, and consequently
runoff generation are altered by changed coarser/different
soil and land cover parameters. Therefore, the uncertainty
measured here is an overall uncertainty in a complicated
model.
ArcSWAT2.3.4 (available on website http://swatmodel.
tamu.edu, Accessed on 29 January, 2010) was used as a
GIS interface for SWAT. ArcSWAT is a pre-processor
interface and post-processor of SWAT model outputs,
providing a complete set of tools for watershed delineation,
definition and editing of the hydrological and agricultural
management inputs, and running and calibrating the model
(Di Luzio et al. 2004). ArcSWAT2.3.4 was used to derive
model parameters from GIS layers for the SWAT model.
The uncertainties in the model outputs due to different
DEM resolutions were assessed by running the model at 11
different DEM resolutions (i.e. 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 90,
100, 120, and 140 m) for each DEM from different data
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sources (DLG 5 m, ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m),
keeping other simulation conditions constant. These con-
ditions included: (1) the same other input data including
land uses, soils, climate, ponds, reservoirs and land man-
agements; (2) minimum upslope drainage area of 800 ha
for stream network extraction; and (3) the same HRUs
definition thresholds of land use/cover (20%), soil (10%)
and slope (20%), recommended by Winchell et al. (2005)
to eliminate tiny polygons of land use/cover, soil and slope
in HRUs.
The SWAT model outputs and the topography parameter
tables derived from watershed delineations were saved in the
SWAT project databases for each run. They covered a period
from 2006 to 2008, but only the annual outputs of 2008 were
analysed to avoid errors in the model’s ‘‘warm-up’’ period.
There were 33 runs and 396 variables involved. Visual Basic
for Applications (Microsoft Corp.) programming was used
to assist data retrieval from the model databases.
2.3 Quantification of model uncertainties
due to different DEM resolutions
The uncertainties of watershed delineations and model out-
puts due to different DEM resolutions and data sources were
quantified as relative difference (RD). This was defined as
RDð%Þ ¼ 100ðPx  P5 Þ=P5 ð1Þ
where Px was any of the watershed delineations or model
outputs based on different resolution and source DEMs,
and P5 was the corresponding base value derived from the
finest DEM (DLG 5 m) with a 5 m resolution, and was
assumed to be the ‘‘best’’. Specifically, for the model
outputs, annual values of runoff (m3 s-1), sediment (ton),
TP (ton), and TN (ton), derived from the 5 m DLG DEM
was used as the baseline scenario.
Calibration for each run was not necessary in this study,
because even with the best possible model calibration for
each run at different resolution, model errors solely due to
DEM inputs could not have been isolated. Instead of using
measured watershed response data, the best possible model
predicted values, P5, were used as baselines to calculate
RD. This approach could not only isolate the uncertainty in
the model due to DEM resolution and source, but also
allow the results of watershed delineations or model out-
puts to be compared in default parameter conditions, con-
sidering parameter calibrations varied with different
catchments. Another reason for ‘‘no calibration’’ was that
the objective in SWAT’s development was to predict the
impact of management on water, sediment and agricultural
chemical yields in large ‘‘ungauged’’ basins where usually
no data available for calibrations (Arnold et al. 1998).
Moreover, in Tiaoxi River watershed which covered the
study area, the uncalibrated model already had good
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Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
performance in runoff simulation (y = 1.08x ? 14.17,
r2 = 0.82, where x was the simulated monthly runoff, and
y was the observed monthly runoff during January 2000–
December 2008). We do not address issues concerning the
SWAT model calibration and validation in this paper.
3 Result
3.1 Terrain characteristics and estimated stream
network characteristics
To understand the effect of DEM resolution on SWAT
outputs, DEM-based watershed terrain and reach charac-
teristics were studied as well as the elevation itself (Figs. 2,
3). Those characters are input parameters of SWAT. For all
DEM sources, results showed that the mean altitudes and
watershed areas were not sensitive to resample resolutions
and data sources (Fig. 2a, c), but the mean slopes were
sensitive (Fig. 2b). The mean slope RD variation of finer
DEM due to resampling (i.e. 40.0% for DLG 5 m) was
higher than the coarser DEMs (i.e. 12.8% for ASTER
30 m, and 13.2% for SRTM 90 m). A change of slope
could cause a substantial variation in field slope length in
an ArcSWAT watershed delineation. When DEMs were
resampled to coarser resolutions, the field slope lengths
derived from ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m remained
constant. On the other hand, the one derived from DLG
5 m increased with plateaus, and reached maximum (RD =
66.7%) at 90 m resolution (Fig. 2d).
Reach lengths and reach slopes varied substantially on
resample resolution, but no obvious trend could be found
(Fig. 3a, b). Because of the different DEM vertical accu-
racies, the reach circuits derived from different data sour-
ces had obvious differences, even when they were
resampled to a same resolution (Fig. 1c). This resulted in
major differences in the topographic features (i.e. reach
lengths and reach slopes) of the estimated reaches. The
reach widths and reach depths were the function of the
rainfall accumulation areas and not sensitive to resample
resolution (Fig. 3c, d). The fact that the values of reach
lengths, widths and depths derived from SRTM 90 m were
much higher than those derived from DLG 5 m and
ASTER 30 m (Fig. 3a–d), indicated that the subbasin
boundaries derived from SRTM 90 m were obviously
different from the ones derived from ASTER 30 m or DLG
5 m. That could be attributed by the obvious artifacts (pits)
in the SRTM 90 m data as shown in Fig. 1f.
3.2 SWAT predicted outputs
Runoff (m3 s-1), sediment (ton), TP (ton), and TN (ton) are
usually the 4 most interested outputs for water resource and
Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221 215

Fig. 2 Watershed topographic

characteristics derived from
DEMs vary with DEM
resolution. The benchmarks of
relative differences (RDs, see
the text) are the values derived
from the finest DEM (DLG
5 m). The lines between data
points are cubic interpolated
trend lines. These notes apply to
the following figures

Fig. 3 Estimated stream

network characteristics derived
from DEMs vary with DEM
resolution

non-point source pollution studies with SWAT. Compari-
sons of the RDs in the modelled outputs indicated that
resample DEM resolution had more substantial effects on
TPs (Fig. 4c), followed by TNs (Fig. 4d), both of which
decreased substantially with coarser resample resolutions;
sediments (Fig. 4b) slightly decreased with short-term
fluctuations; runoffs (Fig. 4a) were not sensitive to
resample resolution. More specifically, the runoff predic-
tions derived from DLG 5 m, ASTER 30 m and SRTM
90 m were close at any resample resolution (Fig. 4a), so
the predicted accuracies of runoffs would not be affected
by resampling or alternative DEM sources in this study.
The predicted sediment values derived from DLG 5 m,
ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m also could be considered as
close at any resample resolution (RD difference \5%),
whilst decreased slightly with coarser resolutions (Fig. 4b).
At any resample resolution, the TP and TN relative pre-
dicted accuracies derived from DLG 5 m were always
‘‘better’’ (relatively) than the ones derived from SRTM
90 m, followed by the ones derived from ASTER 30 m
(Fig. 4c, d). For nutrient predictions (TP and TN), which
were very sensitive to DEM resolutions, the output relative
accuracies of the SWAT model derived from ASTER 30 m
and SRTM 90 m could be ‘‘improved’’ (relatively) by

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Fig. 4 SWAT predicted runoff
(m3 s-1), sediment (ton), TP
(ton), and TN (ton) (measured at
watershed outlet) vary with
DEM inputs of different
resolutions
down-scaled resampling, but they were unable to reach the
accuracies of the finer DEM (DLG 5 m) at the same res-
olutions (Fig. 4c, d). At original resolutions (i.e. 30 for
ASTER 30 m and 90 m for SRTM 90 m), the predicted
runoff, sediment, TP, and TN based on ASTER 30 m and
SRTM 90 m were similar (less than 2% of RD difference).
In a smaller scale of SWAT model outputs, subbasin
simulations with DLG 5 m as input were studied. Figure 5
illustrates that the subbasin outputs varied with the resam-
ple DEM resolution in similar trends as the outputs via
the whole watershed outlet, except that the sediment
output via the up-stream subbasin outlet decreased sub-
stantially on coarser DEM resolution, while the values via
the mid-stream and watershed outlet were relatively stable
(Fig. 5b). The stable watershed sediment could be attrib-
uted to depositions and degradations in mid- and down-
streams. More details will be discussed in the following
Discussion section. Other up- and mid-steam subbasins
(i.e. subbasin 2, 3, 4, and 6) showed same variation trends
as subbasin 1 and 5, which were used as examples in
Fig. 5.
4 Discussion
4.1 Model mechanism
4.1.1 Runoff
The SCS runoff equation (USDA-SCS 1972) is used in
SWAT2005 surface runoff (Qsurf, mm) calculation:
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Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221

2

Qsurf ¼ Rday  Ia = Rday  Ia þ S ð2Þ
where Rday is the rainfall for the day (mm), Ia is the initial
abstractions which include surface storage, interception
and infiltration prior to runoff (mm), and S is the retention
parameter (mm), which is a function of the curve number
(CN) for the day. SWAT2005 does not adjust the CN for
slope. It explains that, in this study, the mean slopes
apparently decreased with coarser resolutions (whether
resampled or original), but runoff was not sensitive to the
resolutions. We had observed a consistent trend of runoff
and area variations on resampling resolutions. The pre-
dicted runoffs based on DLG 5 m, ASTER 30 m and
SRTM 90 m all slightly fluctuated with the resampled
resolution, following the same trends of the areas, indi-
cating that the changes in runoffs were mainly attributed
to the changes in water accumulation areas. Previous
studies show inconsistent results concerning the effects of
the original resolutions on modelled runoff. Some (Wo-
lock and Price 1994; Cho and Lee 2001; Di Luzio et al.
2005) found that runoff decreased with coarser original
DEM resolutions, while others (Bosch et al. 2004; Dixon
and Earls 2009) did not hold the same opinion. Those
comparisons were within a few DEMs with different
resolutions, and were similar with the fluctuation trends in
a small variation scale of DEM resolution of this study.
Nonetheless, they all found that the mean slope decreased
with coarser resolutions, which also illustrated that the
mean slope played a minor role in generating runoff
output using the SWAT model. Similar results were found
by Chaplot (2005), who resampled DEM from 20 to
Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221 217

Fig. 5 SWAT predicted runoff

(m3 s-1), sediment (ton), TP
(ton), and TN (ton) (at subbasin
outlets) vary with DEM
resolutions. The positions of the
subbasins are shown as (e)

500 m and found no consistent variation for both area and
runoff. In the study of Dixon and Earls (2009), original
and resample DEMs with resolutions of 30, 90, and
300 m were used as inputs to assess the uncertainty of the
SWAT. Across their nine runs, larger areas resulted in
higher runoffs. Their findings also showed that the vari-
ations of areas were irregular on resolution, corroborating
the irregular variations of areas found in this study.
However, Cotter et al. (2003) found that the decreases in
DEM data resolution (resampled to 30, 100, 150, 200,
300, 500, and 1,000 m) resulted in decreased areas and
decreased predicted flows, when studying an 18.9 km2
watershed, which was inconsistent with the results of this
study. The reason for the difference might be a smaller
watershed area in their study. The DEM aggregation can
influence the calculated area, but the direction and extent
of the effect will vary upon its base grid size, level of
increase, and edge pattern of the DEM (Vieux and
Needham 1993). A greater variation in area is attributable
to a more irregular shape associated with rapid changes in
topography (due to height), as well as a smaller watershed
area (Wu et al. 2008). Areas are affected by resolution
more obviously in smaller watersheds. In summary, if the
predicted runoff is the focus of the study, area bias should
be considered, especially in small area watersheds.
4.1.2 Sediment
In the SWAT model, erosion (sedsurf) caused by rainfall
and surface runoff is computed using the MUSLE
(Williams 1975), in which a decreased sediment yield from
HRU is expected with a decrease in mean slope and field
slope length:

0:56
sedsurf ¼ 11:8 Qsurf qpeak areahru K C P L S CFRG
ð3Þ
where qpeak is the peak runoff rate (m3 s-1), areahru is the
area of the HRU (ha), K is the USLE soil erodibility factor
(0.013 ton m2 h (m3 ton cm)-1), C is the USLE cover and
management factor, P is the USLE support practice factor,
L is the USLE slope length factor, S is the USLE slope

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218
factor and CFRG is the coarse fragment factor. In this
study, the sediments did not decrease as much as the mean
slopes and field slope lengths, because sediment channel
routing was also simulated in the SWAT. Sediment
transport in the channel network is a function of two
processes, deposition and degradation. The maximum
amount of sediment that can be transported from a reach
segment is calculated by (USDA-SCS 1986):
concsed;ch;mx ¼ csp vspexp
ch;pk ð4Þ
where concsed,ch,mx is the maximum concentration of sed-
iment that can be transported by the water (ton m-3 or
kg l-1), csp is a coefficient, vch,pk is the peak channel
velocity (m s-1), and spexp is an exponent defined by the
user. The maximum concentration of sediment is compared
to the concentration of sediment in the reach at the
beginning of the time step, concsed,ch,i. If concsed,ch,i [
concsed,ch,mx, deposition is the dominant process in the
reach segment. If concsed,ch,i \ concsed,ch,mx, degradation is
the dominant process in the reach segment.
Obviously, the peak channel velocity (vch,pk) plays a
critical role in the sediment transported by the water (Eq. 4).
The sediment concentrations in the watershed outlet are
influenced by the channel degradations and depositions in
mid- and down-streams. As shown in Fig. 5b, even when the
sediment outputs from the up-stream subbasins increased,
the sediments in mid-streams and down-streams were still
stable since they depended on peak channel velocities
(Eq. 4). Moreover, the peak channel velocities could change
by the stream network topographic attributes, which were not
sensitive to the resample resolution in this study (Fig. 3).
Those explains only very slight changes were observed in the
sediment via watershed outlet even the up-stream sediment
outputs increased (Fig. 5b). In the findings of Chaplot
(2005), sediment loads predicted by the SWAT model also
varied irregularly and slightly on resample resolutions from
20 to 200 m. Where soil erosions are not severe and channel
velocities are high, the sediment contents in the water could
be below the water transportation capabilities. In those cases,
coarser the DEM resolutions could cause less sediment loads
for lower slopes and less sediments calculated by MUSLE
(Eq. 3). That explains slight decrease trends in sediment load
simulations when DEM resolution decrease in some study
areas (Wolock and Price 1994; Cotter et al. 2003; Chaubey
et al. 2005; Di Luzio et al. 2005).
4.1.3 TP and TN
In the SWAT model, soluble N and P in runoff, as products of
the volume of water and average concentrations of N and P in
soil layers, are not sensitive to watershed topographic attri-
butions. But sediment transport of N and P are based on the
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Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
sediment yields in HRUs, which decrease with coarser
resolutions. The same variation trend shared by slopes and
nutrients (TP and TN) in this study indicates that the nutrient
outputs are affected by DEM resolution via slope. Because
most of P was transported by the sediment, the decreased
gradients of TPs were more than TNs, which were mainly
transported by water (Fig. 4c, d). This result is consistent
with those reported by Cotter et al. (2003) and Chaubey et al.
(2005), who found that the modelled TP and NO3–N
decreased with coarser resample DEM resolution from 30 to
1,000 m. The same trends shared by nutrients (TP and TN)
and mean slopes indicate that it is possible to reduce the slope
effect caused by DEM resolutions by adding a parameter to
the SWAT. By doing that, errors caused by resampling could
possibly be reduced by model calibrations.
4.2 DEM resolution
Resampling is widely used by GIS-based model workers to
ensure all raster data layers have a same cell size to
facilitate spatial analyses. The resolution of GIS data is
closely associated with the computation speed in spatial
analysis. When the computing time is too long to run a
model in high resolution, model users may want to
resample the DEM data to a coarser resolution to speed up
the computation procedure. The model users should be
aware that the resample resolution is not a ‘‘real’’ resolu-
tion, but a ‘‘nominal’’ resolution. Decreasing the size
beyond the resolution of the original data does not increase
the accuracy of the land surface representation of the DEM
and potentially introduced interpolation errors (Zhang and
Montgomery 1994; Straumann and Purves 2004).
This study shows that the accuracy of the predicted
SWAT model outputs of finer DEM (DLG 5 m) decreased
more rapidly than those of coarser DEMs (ASTER 30 m
and SRTM 90 m) on resample resolutions. Resampling
coarser DEM input data (ASTER 30 m or SRTM 90 m) to
higher resolutions could increase the relative accuracy of
the annual predicted TPs and TNs, but the predicted out-
puts still were lower than values derived from the finer
resolution (DLG 5 m), indicating that resampling to finer
resolutions could possibly provide DEMs with better rep-
resentative of the real terrain, but their accuracies were still
limited by the resolution of the original data. For example,
as shown in Fig. 4c, d, the predicted TP and TN with 5 m
resampled SRTM 90 m as input are almost equal to the
outputs with 90 m resampled DLG 5 m as input.
Whether to resample or not depends on objectives of
studies. For example, in this study, if annual outputs of
runoff and sediment were the foci of the study and ±10.0%
of the maximum RD was allowed, all the predicted outputs
were acceptable with any of resample resolutions and any
source of the DEM data as input.
Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess (2013) 27:209–221
4.3 DEM data quality
Environmental models often require detailed terrain data.
Nowadays, remote-sensing-derived DEMs form an increas-
ingly important source of information for these applications.
Yet, it is often not easy to decide what the most suitable source
of information is and how different input data affect modelled
outcomes.
This study compared qualities and performances of
remote sensing-derived data (ASTER 30 m, SRTM 90 m)
for the SWAT Model developed for a forest watershed in
South-eastern China. These results indicate that the SWAT
modelled outputs, which were based on ASTER 30 m and
SRTM 90 m, were similar, even though their vertical accu-
racies were different (33.1 m RMSE for ASTER 30 m and
58.9 m RMSE for SRTM 90 m) and the grid size of SRTM
90 m was larger than ASTER 30 m by about 3 times. For
example, simulated TN based on SRTM 90 m provided
similar performance with the one based on ASTER 30 m
(RD was -8.2% for ASTER 30 m and -8.0% for SRTM
90 m). It would not be a problem to replace ASTER 30 m
with the coarser SRTM 90 m in this case, if the annual out-
puts were the foci of the study and ±10.0% of the maximum
RD was allowed. In another word, ASTER 30 m with a
higher accuracy did not assure a better performance in the
model simulation. That was because DEM as one of many
input parameters, its errors might have been diluted by the
model itself, especially like SWAT which was an integrated
model with hundreds of equations. In this study, the errors in
SRTM 90 m coincidently changed the stream network
parameters (Fig. 3) resulting in a performance improvement
in SRTM 90 m. For example, the mean slopes of ASTER
30 m were higher than SRTM 90 m at any resample reso-
lution, but the predicted TNs and TPs derived from ASTER
30 m were not higher than those derived from SRTM 90 m
as expected (Fig. 3). This was explained by the longer reach
length, wider reach width, and deeper reach depth of SRTM
90 m (Fig. 2), all of which resulted in a lower peak channel
velocity, more subsequent sediment deposit in the subbasin
reaches and hence less nutrients in the sediment discharged
from the watershed. Notwithstanding, a DEM with better
accuracy should be recommended to avoid possible errors in
model simulations.
Comparing to SRTM 90 m, the quality of the new
ASTER 30 m dataset has been debating, and significant
anomalies and artifacts in ASTER 30 m has been noticed
even it has better nominal resolution than SRTM 90 m
(Hirt et al. 2010; Reuter et al. 2009). Further investigation
indicates that ASTER 30 m spatial resolution is around
100 m which is worse than SRTM 90 m (ASTER Valida-
tion ASTER Validation Team 2009). However, in some
places (e.g. the area of this study) accuracy of ASTER
30 m is better than SRTM 90 m. Blanchard et al. (2010)
219
summarized the vertical accuracies of ASTER 30 m and
SRTM 90 m (resampled to 30 m resolution), and indicated
that SRTM 90 m vertical accuracies were the highest for
built-up areas and bare soils, and the lowest for forests,
whereas ASTER 30 m accuracies were the highest for
forests and the lowest for agriculture and grassland land
covers. Therefore, ASTER 30 m could be a better DEM
dataset in some circumstances (e.g. mixed forest area of
this study area) and should be used with cautions.
4.4 Limitations
This study was conducted under specific conditions for
specific area, climate, and time scale (yearly). We believe
that our results have indicated DEM uncertainties in the
uncalibrated SWAT model. In other circumstances, such as
a low gradient (flat) watershed where slope is not sensitive
to DEM grid size, scales of uncertainties can be different.
Especially, when the model is calibrated and weights of the
model parameters are changed, the extents of model out-
puts reacting to DEM might be different. We only present
possible uncertainties derived from DEM resolutions and
data sources by a case study.
5 Conclusions
DEM grid size and data source are sources of model
uncertainties, their effects on the SWAT model predictive
capabilities are important (particularly for TN and TP
simulations as shown in this study). This study has high-
lighted the potential to introduce uncertainties into the
SWAT model by using alternatively sourced and resam-
pled DEMs and what the likely impacts that these data will
have on the model’s ability to successful simulate the
chemical and physical processes in watersheds.
(1) The SWAT model estimation of runoff was not
sensitive (RD B1.0%) to both DEM resample reso-
lutions and the data sources in this study. The extent
of the watershed areas affected by DEMs indicated
the extent of the runoffs affected by DEMs. There-
fore, in smaller watersheds whose areas could be
sensitive to DEM grid sizes, coarser DEMs should be
used with cautions.
(2) If the sediment was the focus of the study and a 6.0%
RD was permitted, we could choose DEMs from any
source (DLG 5 m, ASTER 30 m, or SRTM 90 m)
and resampled resolution (5–140 m) as model input in
this study. The results suggested that any of the data
sources are comparable for sediment simulations in
the study area. However, in watersheds where soil
erosions are not severe and channel velocities are
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high, the sediment contents in water could be below
the water transportation capabilities. In those cases,
coarser DEMs could cause lower simulated
sediments.
(3) The modeled TP and TN were sensitive to DEM
resolutions and data sources as much as the DEM
derived slopes did. The TP and TN decreased
significantly on the resample grid sizes, and this
should be considered when replacing the original
resolution DEMs with resample ones. For finer DEM
(DLG5 m), the predicted values of TP and TN were
much higher than those in coarser DEMs (ASTER
30 m and SRTM 90 m) (RD difference [8.0%).
To decide which DEM source and grid size is appro-
priate for the SWAT model, interested outputs and the
maximum acceptable errors should be predetermined for a
specific watershed. For sensitive research objects such as
TP and TN, resampling DEMs to finer resolutions could
improve the model performances, but extents of the
improvements were limited by the original DEM accura-
cies. Global modeled results of finer DEM (DLG 5 m)
showed substantial differences from those of coarser DEMs
(ASTER 30 m and SRTM 90 m) even at a same resample
resolution. We recommend higher accuracy DEMs as
model inputs to avoid more uncertainties.
Acknowledgments The funding of this study was provided partly
by National Key Project of Water Research (Grant No. 2011ZX07).
We sincerely appreciate Stefan Fritsch and GBP Huddlestone for their
helps on language improvement of this paper.
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