Countrywide digital surface models and vegetation height models from historical aerial images

Marty, Mauro; Piermattei, Livia; Waser, Lars T.; Ginzler, Christian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-5811-2025

Articles | Volume 17, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-5811-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-5811-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 11

Data description paper

|

04 Nov 2025

Data description paper |

| 04 Nov 2025

Countrywide digital surface models and vegetation height models from historical aerial images

Mauro Marty, Livia Piermattei, Lars T. Waser, and Christian Ginzler

Data sets

Historical Vegetation Height Model NFI Mauro Marty et al. https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.528

Short summary

Millions of aerial photographs represent an enormous resource for geoscientists. In this study, we used freely available historical stereo images covering Switzerland (1979–2006) to derive four countrywide digital elevation models (DSMs) at a 1 m spatial resolution. Our DSMs achieved sub-metric accuracy compared to reference data and high image matching completeness, demonstrating the feasibility of capturing surface change at a high spatial resolution over different land cover classes.