Lidar Markets Technology

Sources of Free Lidar Data

This detailed article in Geospatial World by Anusuya Datta provides an extensive listing and description of a variety of free lidar data sources from around the world, as well as this informative introductory video.

The USGS 3DEP program is the leader in this effort to democratize lidar data here in the U.S. Along the coast NOAA’s Digital Coast covers over 550,000 sq. miles with contributions from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Geodetic Survey.

A group that I have not heard of is the United States Interagency Elevation Inventory which is collaboration of the USGS and NOAA. They provide an inventory of high-accuracy topographic and bathymetric data for the U.S.

There are a number of other resources including sources in the UK, Netherlands, Finland and Spain.

 

1 Comment

  • That’s interesting, but not awfully helpful if your reader is in the UK, Netherlands, Finland or Spain and needs local data. Basically the article says that there is free data …. somewhere.

    As far as the UK is concerned, the Environment Agency publishes Lidar data, mainly at 1m resolution in 1Km tiles . The data covers most of the UK and will cover all of England by the end of this year (2018). They are trying to raise the money to complete the surveys for the whole of the UK. The tiles are named according to the UK Ordnance Survey map reference conventions. You can download what they have from here: https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/#/survey

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