{
  "cdh_schema_version": "v0.5.0",
  "extensions": [
    "https://cgiar-climate-data-hub.github.io/cdh-metadata-standard/v0.5.0/extensions/cdh/schema.json"
  ],
  "id": "copernicus-dem",
  "title": "Copernicus DEM global digital surface model, 30 m and 90 m",
  "version": "2021_1",
  "description": "Global digital surface model (DSM) of the Earth's surface including buildings, infrastructure and vegetation, derived from the TanDEM-X radar mission and edited and infilled by Airbus Defence and Space for the European Space Agency (ESA) under the Copernicus programme. Two public instances: GLO-30 at 1 arc-second (~30 m) and GLO-90 at 3 arc-seconds (~90 m), both as orthometric heights in metres over the EGM2008 geoid. The standard global elevation base for terrain derivatives, hydrological conditioning and elevation covariates. Sinergise (Sentinel Hub) republishes each instance on AWS Open Data as one cloud-optimized GeoTIFF per 1x1 degree tile with a static SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC). The Hub publishes a GDAL tile index (GTI) per instance that opens all tiles as one global raster, and a STAC GeoParquet snapshot of the Earth Search items for each instance that lists the tiles with their footprints and grid metadata. No data is copied.\n",
  "resource_type": "dataset",
  "license": "LicenseRef-Copernicus-DEM",
  "attribution": "© DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved.\n",
  "keywords": [
    "elevation",
    "DEM",
    "digital surface model",
    "terrain",
    "topography",
    "Copernicus",
    "TanDEM-X"
  ],
  "note": "GLO-30 is missing 25 tiles over Armenia and Azerbaijan: Copernicus released them only in 2023_1, after the 2021_1 copy on AWS. Use GLO-90 there. Above 50 degrees latitude the GTI resamples the wider-pixel tiles to the equatorial grid on read with nearest neighbour, so columns repeat. The GTI needs GDAL 3.8 or newer and references the tiles over HTTPS with /vsicurl, so open it with GDAL-based tools and read a window at a time rather than the full dataset.\n",
  "contact": [
    {
      "organization": "European Space Agency (ESA), Copernicus programme",
      "url": "https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/explore-data/data-collections/copernicus-contributing-missions/collections-description/COP-DEM",
      "roles": [
        "licensor",
        "producer"
      ]
    },
    {
      "organization": "Sinergise (Sentinel Hub)",
      "url": "https://copernicus-dem-30m.s3.amazonaws.com/readme.html",
      "roles": [
        "processor"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Brayden Youngberg",
      "organization": "Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT",
      "email": "b.youngberg@cgiar.org",
      "roles": [
        "processor",
        "maintainer",
        "point-of-contact"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "citation": {
    "title": "Copernicus DEM - Global and European Digital Elevation Model (COP-DEM)",
    "authors": [
      {
        "organization": "European Space Agency (ESA)"
      }
    ],
    "date": "2021",
    "publisher": "European Space Agency",
    "url": "https://doi.org/10.5270/ESA-c5d3d65"
  },
  "doi": "10.5270/ESA-c5d3d65",
  "created": "2026-10-15",
  "updated": "2026-10-15",
  "spatial": {
    "bbox": [
      -180,
      -90,
      180,
      90
    ],
    "crs": "EPSG:4326",
    "geography": [
      "world"
    ]
  },
  "temporal": {
    "start_date": "2011",
    "end_date": "2015"
  },
  "structures": [
    {
      "name": "glo-30",
      "dimensions": [
        {
          "name": "cell",
          "type": "xy",
          "description": "1 arc-second (~30 m at the equator). Latitude spacing is constant; longitude spacing is 1.5x, 2x, 3x, 5x and 10x wider above 50, 60, 70, 80 and 85 degrees.\n",
          "step": 0.000277778,
          "unit": "degree"
        }
      ],
      "variables": [
        {
          "name": "elevation",
          "description": "Surface height above the EGM2008 geoid, including canopy and buildings. No nodata value; the ocean has no tiles and reads as 0, so sea cannot be told from 0 m land.\n",
          "data_type": "float32",
          "unit": "m"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "glo-90",
      "dimensions": [
        {
          "name": "cell",
          "type": "xy",
          "description": "3 arc-seconds (~90 m at the equator), same latitude-dependent longitude spacing as GLO-30.",
          "step": 0.000833333,
          "unit": "degree"
        }
      ],
      "variables": [
        {
          "name": "elevation",
          "description": "Surface height above the EGM2008 geoid, including canopy and buildings. No nodata value; the ocean has no tiles and reads as 0, so sea cannot be told from 0 m land.\n",
          "data_type": "float32",
          "unit": "m"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "cdh": {
    "domain": [
      "land"
    ],
    "usage": {
      "intended_uses": [
        "terrain inputs such as slope, aspect and flow direction for crop suitability and hydrological modelling",
        "elevation covariate for downscaling climate and interpolating station data",
        "exposure baselines for flood and landslide hazard, and visibility and routing analysis"
      ],
      "not_recommended_for": [
        {
          "use": "bare-earth terrain analysis under forest or in cities",
          "reason": "it is a surface model, so heights include canopy and buildings.",
          "use_instead": "a bare-earth product derived from it, such as FABDEM, or local LiDAR terrain models."
        },
        {
          "use": "elevation change or time series",
          "reason": "a single static model from 2011 to 2015 radar acquisitions, released with edits rather than new data."
        },
        {
          "use": "sub-metre vertical precision, such as drainage design",
          "reason": "absolute vertical accuracy is specified as under 4 m at 90% confidence."
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "processing": [
    {
      "id": "source",
      "description": "WorldDEM radar surface model from the TanDEM-X mission (2011 to 2015), edited, infilled and resampled by Airbus Defence and Space to the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 and GLO-90 DGED products, 2021_1 release.\n",
      "derived_from": [
        {
          "title": "Copernicus DEM - Global and European Digital Elevation Model (COP-DEM)",
          "url": "https://doi.org/10.5270/ESA-c5d3d65",
          "version": "2021_1"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "cloud-optimize",
      "description": "Each 1x1 degree tile converted to a cloud-optimized GeoTIFF by Sinergise: the row and column shared with neighbouring tiles dropped, giving 3600 (GLO-30) or 1200 (GLO-90) rows per tile, DEFLATE compression with floating-point predictor and average-resampled overviews. Published on AWS Open Data with a static STAC catalog per instance.\n"
    },
    {
      "id": "index",
      "description": "Items for each instance read from the Element 84 Earth Search STAC API, which carries projection, grid and raster metadata the static AWS catalog lacks, with asset hrefs rewritten from s3:// to HTTPS so readers need no credentials. Snapshotted to STAC GeoParquet, one file per instance, and a GTI tile index written over the elevation tiles at the equatorial resolution. No data is copied.\n",
      "code": {
        "url": "https://github.com/CGIAR-Climate-Data-Hub/cdh-data-pipeline/blob/main/recipes/copernicus_dem.py",
        "version": "ffe089e"
      },
      "date": "2026-10-15"
    }
  ],
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "glo-30",
      "structures": [
        "glo-30"
      ],
      "description": "26,450 GLO-30 tiles named Copernicus_DSM_COG_10_<N|S>yy_00_<E|W>xxx_00_DEM, one folder per tile holding the elevation COG and an AUXFILES folder with editing, filling, water-body and height-error masks. Open the GTI as one global raster, or the GeoParquet to list and select elevation tiles; the masks are not indexed.\n",
      "locations": [
        {
          "url": "https://copernicus-dem-30m.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/",
          "title": "HTTPS"
        },
        {
          "url": "s3://copernicus-dem-30m/",
          "title": "S3 (eu-central-1, no credentials)"
        }
      ],
      "media_type": "image/tiff; application=geotiff; profile=cloud-optimized",
      "processing_steps": [
        "source",
        "cloud-optimize"
      ],
      "file_index": [
        {
          "format": "gti",
          "title": "VSICURl/HTTPS based Gdal Tile index",
          "media_type": "application/geopackage+sqlite3",
          "locations": [
            {
              "url": "https://digital-atlas.s3.amazonaws.com/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-30.gti.gpkg",
              "title": "HTTPS"
            },
            {
              "url": "s3://digital-atlas/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-30.gti.gpkg",
              "title": "S3"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "format": "stac-geoparquet",
          "title": "STAC GeoParquet of the Earth Search items. hrefs are HTTPS",
          "media_type": "application/vnd.apache.parquet",
          "locations": [
            {
              "url": "https://digital-atlas.s3.amazonaws.com/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-30.parquet",
              "title": "HTTPS"
            },
            {
              "url": "s3://digital-atlas/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-30.parquet",
              "title": "S3"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "glo-90",
      "structures": [
        "glo-90"
      ],
      "description": "26,475 GLO-90 tiles named Copernicus_DSM_COG_30_<N|S>yy_00_<E|W>xxx_00_DEM, same layout as GLO-30. Complete land coverage, including the tiles withheld from GLO-30.\n",
      "locations": [
        {
          "url": "https://copernicus-dem-90m.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/",
          "title": "HTTPS"
        },
        {
          "url": "s3://copernicus-dem-90m/",
          "title": "S3 (eu-central-1, no credentials)"
        }
      ],
      "media_type": "image/tiff; application=geotiff; profile=cloud-optimized",
      "processing_steps": [
        "source",
        "cloud-optimize"
      ],
      "file_index": [
        {
          "format": "gti",
          "title": "VSICURl/HTTPS based Gdal Tile index",
          "media_type": "application/geopackage+sqlite3",
          "locations": [
            {
              "url": "https://digital-atlas.s3.amazonaws.com/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-90.gti.gpkg",
              "title": "HTTPS"
            },
            {
              "url": "s3://digital-atlas/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-90.gti.gpkg",
              "title": "S3"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "format": "stac-geoparquet",
          "title": "STAC GeoParquet of the Earth Search items. hrefs are HTTPS",
          "media_type": "application/vnd.apache.parquet",
          "locations": [
            {
              "url": "https://digital-atlas.s3.amazonaws.com/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-90.parquet",
              "title": "HTTPS"
            },
            {
              "url": "s3://digital-atlas/cdh/data/copernicus-dem-2021/glo-90.parquet",
              "title": "S3"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "additional_links": [
    {
      "title": "Copernicus DEM licence",
      "rel": "license",
      "url": "https://documentation.dataspace.copernicus.eu/APIs/SentinelHub/Data/DEM/resources/license/License-COPDEM-30.pdf",
      "description": "Free use for the general public; the attribution notice above is required when redistributing. The licence the AWS README points to for both GLO-30 Public and GLO-90.\n"
    },
    {
      "title": "Copernicus DEM product page and release history",
      "rel": "about",
      "url": "https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/explore-data/data-collections/copernicus-contributing-missions/collections-description/COP-DEM",
      "description": "Datums, accuracy specification, DOI and what changed in each yearly release."
    },
    {
      "title": "Copernicus DEM product handbook",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/media/files/2024-06/geo1988-copernicusdem-spe-002_producthandbook_i5.0.pdf",
      "description": "Editing rules, quality mask codes and tile specifications."
    },
    {
      "title": "Copernicus DEM on the Registry of Open Data on AWS",
      "rel": "about",
      "url": "https://registry.opendata.aws/copernicus-dem/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sentinel Hub README for the AWS buckets",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://copernicus-dem-30m.s3.amazonaws.com/readme.html",
      "description": "COG conversion details, tile naming and the latitude-dependent pixel spacing table."
    },
    {
      "title": "Earth Search STAC API collection, GLO-30",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://earth-search.aws.element84.com/v1/collections/cop-dem-glo-30",
      "description": "Element 84's searchable STAC items for the AWS tiles, the source of the GeoParquet snapshot."
    },
    {
      "title": "Earth Search STAC API collection, GLO-90",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://earth-search.aws.element84.com/v1/collections/cop-dem-glo-90"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sentinel Hub static STAC collection, GLO-30",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://copernicus-dem-30m-stac.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/dem_cop_30.json",
      "description": "The producer's own catalog of the same tiles, including the quality-mask assets."
    },
    {
      "title": "Sentinel Hub static STAC collection, GLO-90",
      "rel": "describedby",
      "url": "https://copernicus-dem-90m-stac.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/dem_cop_90.json"
    }
  ]
}