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NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Global 3 arc second NetCDF V003

Metadata Updated: September 18, 2025

The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) is responsible for the archive and distribution of NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) SRTM, which includes the global 3 arc second (~90 meter) product. The 3 arc second data was derived from the 1 arc second using averaging methods. (See Figure 3 in the User Guide) The NASA SRTM data sets result from a collaborative effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA - previously known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, or NIMA), as well as the participation of the German and Italian space agencies. This collaboration aims to generate a near-global digital elevation model (DEM) of Earth using radar interferometry. SRTM was the primary (and virtually only) payload on the STS-99 mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which launched February 11, 2000 and flew for 11 days.The SRTM swaths extended from ~30 degrees off-nadir to ~58 degrees off-nadir from an altitude of 233 kilometers (km), creating swaths ~225 km wide, and consisted of all land between 60° N and 56° S latitude to account for 80% of Earth's total landmass. The SRTMGL3 data were generated from SRTM1GL data that fall within that tile. These elevation files use the extension ".HGT", meaning height (such as N37W105.SRTMGL3.HGT). The primary goal of creating the Version 3 data was to eliminate gaps, or voids, that were present in earlier versions of SRTM data. In areas with limited data, existing topographical data were used to supplement the SRTM data to fill the voids. The source of each elevation pixel is identified in the corresponding SRTMGL3N product (such as N37W105.SRTMGL3N.NUM).The global 3 arc second SRTM product is also available in NetCDF4 format as the SRTMGL3_NC dataset with the source of each elevation pixel in the corresponding SRTMGL3_NUMNC product.Known Issues Known issues in the NASA SRTM are described in the following publication: * Rodriguez, E., C. S. Morris, and J. E. Belz (2006), A global assessment of the SRTM performance, Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 72, 249–260. https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.72.3.249Improvements/Changes from Previous Version Voids in the Version 3.0 products were filled with ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) Version 2.0, the Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010), and the National Elevation Dataset (NED).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025
Publisher LP DAAC;NASA/JPL/SRTM
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/MEASURES/SRTM/SRTMGL3_NC.003
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id b799c8c9-7180-4c32-846d-c7c77c7964a7
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://e4ftl01.cr.usgs.gov/MEASURES/SRTMGL3_NC.003/
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":60,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-56}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 15eb49f31ced1a6d954823da080bd841558269a0dc3bf9a48785b807332fa43e
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2000-02-11/2000-02-11

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