JAXA's 30m global DSM from PRISM stereo imagery — a strong third opinion alongside SRTM and Copernicus DEM.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing
9 tools · Topic
Satellite & Global DEM Data Sources
Global elevation is now free at 30 m resolution or better, thanks to a handful of satellite missions: SRTM, Copernicus DEM, NASADEM, ASTER GDEM and ALOS AW3D30, plus derivatives like FABDEM that strip out forest and building bias for hydrology. This page indexes the raw datasets themselves — see DEM Processing for the tools that condition them.
ASTER GDEM
Gov-Public
A 30m global DEM reaching to 83° latitude — the go-to where SRTM/NASADEM have no coverage at all.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing
Copernicus DEM (GLO-30 / GLO-90)
Gov-Public
ESA's TanDEM-X-derived global DEM — the most accurate free global surface model available today.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing
FABDEM
Academic-only
Copernicus DEM with forests and buildings stripped out — the bare-earth DEM flood and drainage models actually want.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing
Google Earth Engine
Freemium
Planetary-scale geospatial analysis in the cloud — the data catalogue and compute behind modern water remote sensing.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveGoogle Earth EngineRemote Sensing
Microsoft Planetary Computer
Freemium
A STAC API and Jupyter environment over petabytes of satellite data — Sentinel, Landsat, MODIS, ERA5, CHIRPS and more.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveRemote SensingPython Hydrology
NASA Earthdata Search
Gov-Public
The unified search portal across every NASA Earth-observation archive — SRTM, MODIS, SMAP, GPM, GRACE and more.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveRemote SensingSatellite DEM Data
NASADEM
Gov-Public
SRTM reprocessed with modern algorithms and merged with ASTER/ICESat — a quiet accuracy upgrade, same footprint.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing
SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)
Gov-Public
The original free global DEM — 30m/90m elevation from an 11-day shuttle radar mission, still a baseline today.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableSatellite DEM DataDEM Processing