HIGH QUALITY DEMS FOR GLACIER MONITORING – IMAGE MATCHING VERSUS LASER SCANNING

Glacier monitoring is of great importance since glaciers are influencing essential areas of life like water supply, energy production, flood protection and tourism. Furthermore, the variation of glaciers is a sensitive indicator for local and global climate change. One method for the computation of mass balances of glaciers is based on high quality DEMs derived with remote sensing techniques. During the establishment of the new Austrian glacier inventory a new approach for semi-automatic DEM generation from aerial images has been developed in order to reach best quality for the DEM with a minimum of effort for manual verification and editing. Within the OMEGA project (Operational Monitoring System for European Glacial Areas) the Vernagtferner, a glacier which is monitored permanently has been covered with airborne laser scanning and aerial images. This way it was possible to process both, the aerial images and the laser data and to evaluate both methods with respect to accuracy, economic efficiency and overall suitability. The paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of both methods for glacier monitoring