Morphological parameters of the Magdalena River basin from LiDAR data and digital elevation models

Abstract

Regardless of socioeconomic criteria, the determination of spatial environmental value,
ecosystem services and scenic beauty of the relief, requires a prior characterization and
quantification of the surface’s attributes. The use of Digital Surface and Terrain Models
generated from vector data, such as those from LiDAR remote sensing technique, allows
extracting primary and secondary attributes to generate indexes and basic functions. This
article presents morphological attributes (three-dimensional surface, visibility, insolation and
vegetation density) of the Magdalena river basin calculated from Digital Terrain Model
(DTM), Digital Surface Model (DSM) and Canopy Height Model (CHM) of a LiDAR flight.
Finally, the attributes are integrated into a multidimensional analysis to determine the
environmental value of the Magdalena river basin.