CoastalDEM®: New v2.1 release provides even better elevation data for flood risk assessment
Other leading global DEMs average more than a meter too high. That's taller than most coastal floods. Use CoastalDEM instead.
Available for non-commercial and commercial purposes.
Are you underestimating your coastal flood risk?
CoastalDEM is Climate Central's proprietary, high-accuracy digital elevation model for coastal areas. It reduces median errors in NASA's widely used NASADEM to near zero, and outperforms other prevalent global DEMs, particularly in low-lying and densely populated areas—areas where accurate elevation data is vital for accurate flood risk assessment. Top-accuracy DEMs from airborne lidar are unavailable for most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. CoastalDEM can help you understand coastal risk in these areas and globally*.
Or inquire about our Portfolio Analysis Tool, and let us quantify coastal flood risk for you.
Billions in real estate investments
near the coast are going to reprice.
Coastal flooding is accelerating and coming to new locations. Some may be in your portfolio. Real estate values are already taking a hit – directly by flood damage and indirectly when insurance, roads and services are impacted.
CoastalDEM®
Now with improvements in neural network architecture, additional and improved input datasets, Climate Central has further reduced the bias and error scatter in CoastalDEM® v2.1, making it the best-performing of all leading, publicly-available, global digital elevation models tested.
In 2019, Climate Central released CoastalDEM® v1.1, a more accurate near global DEM which dramatically improved global flood risk assessments—finding more than triple the number of people currently living on land that could face regular flooding by 2050 than was previously understood.
When tested against global ICESat-2 and airborne lidar-derived data available for the U.S. and Australia, CoastalDEM v2.1 consistently outperforms other leading global DEMs in terms of both bias and error scatter, across elevations, population densities, and spatial scales.
CoastalDEM is particularly strong in low-lying areas where it is vital to understand flood risk and in densely populated areas where the built environment adversely affects other global DEMs.
CoastalDEM is a digital terrain model providing bare earth elevations for coastal areas between -10 and 120 m and latitudes 60° N and 56° S. It has continuous vertical resolution and 1 arc second (~100 ft) horizontal resolution.
CoastalDEM is based on rigorous peer-reviewed science—and costs pennies on the dollar versus commercial products that may have vertical accuracy comparable to CoastalDEM.
Read about CoastalDEM v2.1 to learn more and see comparison statistics.
Climate Central is a non-profit
research organization providing authoritative, science-based information products to help public and corporate stakeholders make sound decisions about climate and energy. Hundreds of thousands have used our tools, including professionals in real estate, insurance, banking and government.
ABOUT US
Our analysts bring you top research and datasets to help you manage risk in a changing climate. We provide practical information you can use in your business, organization or community.
WHAT WE DO
CoastalDEM®: New v2.1 release provides even better elevation data for flood risk assessment
Other leading global DEMs average more than a meter too high. That's taller than most coastal floods. Use CoastalDEM instead.
Available for non-commercial and commercial purposes.
CoastalDEM is Climate Central's proprietary, high-accuracy digital elevation model for coastal areas. It reduces median errors in NASA's widely used NASADEM to near zero, and outperforms other prevalent global DEMs, particularly in low-lying and densely populated areas—areas where accurate elevation data is vital for accurate flood risk assessment. Top-accuracy DEMs from airborne lidar are unavailable for most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. CoastalDEM can help you understand coastal risk in these areas and globally*.
Or inquire about our Portfolio Analysis Tool, and let us quantify coastal flood risk for you.
Are you underestimating your coastal flood risk?
Coastal flooding is accelerating and coming to new locations. Some may be in your portfolio. Real estate values are already taking a hit – directly by flood damage and indirectly when insurance, roads and services are impacted.
Billions in real estate investments
near the coast are going to reprice.
Now with improvements in neural network architecture, additional and improved input datasets, Climate Central has further reduced the bias and error scatter in CoastalDEM® v2.1, making it the best-performing of all leading, publicly-available, global digital elevation models tested.
In 2019, Climate Central released CoastalDEM® v1.1, a more accurate near global DEM which dramatically improved global flood risk assessments—finding more than triple the number of people currently living on land that could face regular flooding by 2050 than was previously understood.
When tested against global ICESat-2 and airborne lidar-derived data available for the U.S. and Australia, CoastalDEM v2.1 consistently outperforms other leading global DEMs in terms of both bias and error scatter, across elevations, population densities, and spatial scales.
CoastalDEM is particularly strong in low-lying areas where it is vital to understand flood risk and in densely populated areas where the built environment adversely affects other global DEMs.
CoastalDEM is a digital terrain model providing bare earth elevations for coastal areas between -10 and 120 m and latitudes 60° N and 56° S. It has continuous vertical resolution and 1 arc second (~100 ft) horizontal resolution.
CoastalDEM is based on rigorous peer-reviewed science—and costs pennies on the dollar versus commercial products that may have vertical accuracy comparable to CoastalDEM.
Read about CoastalDEM v2.1 to learn more and see comparison statistics.
Climate Central is a non-profit
research organization
providing authoritative, science-based information products to help public and corporate stakeholders make sound decisions about climate and energy. Hundreds of thousands have used our tools, including professionals in real estate, insurance, banking and government.
Our analysts bring you top research and datasets to help you manage risk in a changing climate. We provide practical information you can use in your business, organization or community.
Mean Biases of Leading Global DEMs Measured Against ICESat-2
CoastalDEM offers important improvements over the most common alternatives.
CoastalDEM virtually eliminates global mean and median vertical bias, while other global DEMs contain multimeter biases. Overestimating the height of the land leads to underestimating flood exposure.
Global mean vertical bias of CoastalDEM versions 2.1 and 1.1 and four other commonly used global DEMs in coastal areas 5 meters above sea level or less, using ICESat-2 as ground truth. See more accuracy data here
CoastalDEM offers important improvements over the most common alternatives.
CoastalDEM virtually eliminates global mean and median vertical bias, while other global DEMs contain multimeter biases. Overestimating the height of the land leads to underestimating flood exposure.
© Climate Central. All rights reserved.
2050 flood exposure* - CoastalDEM
as seen on
also featured on
*between the latitudes of 60° N and 56° S
2050 flood exposure* - SRTM
*between the latitudes of 60° N and 56° S
Mean Biases of Leading Global DEMs Measured Against ICESat-2
Global mean vertical bias of CoastalDEM versions 2.1 and 1.1 and four other commonly used global DEMs in coastal areas 5 meters above sea level or less, using ICESat-2 as ground truth. See more accuracy data here