In February 2000 the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), a joint project of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, collected data that have been processed into an unprecedented near-global high-resolution elevation dataset. The user community has embraced the availability of SRTM data, and the data are being used in many operational and research settings. These varied uses are evidence that the primary mission objective—to provide high-quality global elevation data for civil, military, and scientific users—is being met. To help document the SRTM data quality and characteristics, and to describe applications benefiting from the data, a workshop was convened for the SRTM data user community on June 14-16, 2005.

Workshop Sponsors:

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, Working Group on Calibration and Validation (CEOS/WGCV)
• International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS)
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

Workshop Results:

The workshop was held at the USGS national headquarters facility in Reston, Virginia, and was attended by more than 175 participants from 14 countries. Results of validation studies and applications of SRTM data were reported in more than 40 oral presentations and more than 20 poster presentations. The presentations are available here for viewing or download on the “Workshop Presentations” page. Several of the workshop presentations also appear in more detail in the March 2006 issue of Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing published by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.