Tomáš IČ, Renata ĎURAČIOVÁ

Analýza vybraných mier drsnosti reliéfu odvodených z digitálnych výškových modelov: hodnotenie významu lokálnej fraktálnej dimenzie

Ič, T., Ďuračiová, R.: Comparative Analysis of Selected DEM-Based Terrain Roughness Metrics: Assessing the Role of Local Fractal Dimension. Kartografické listy, 2026, 34 (1).

Abstract: Terrain roughness is one of the fundamental characteristics of the Earth's surface and is widely used in spatial analyses within geographic information systems (GIS). This study presents a comparative evaluation of selected methods for quantifying terrain roughness derived from raster-based digital elevation models (DEMs). Particular emphasis is placed on the local fractal dimen-sion method, which remains underutilized in GIS environments but enables the characterization of surface geometric complexity across scales. This approach is compared with commonly used GIS-based methods relying on local elevation differences and surface orientation. The experi-mental analysis is conducted using three high-resolution DEM samples with a spatial resolution of 1 m. The results are presented as terrain roughness rasters and subsequently evaluated through numerical and statistical analyses. The study highlights differences among the evaluated ap-proaches and discusses the potential of local fractal dimension as an alternative tool for terrain roughness assessment in GIS. The results indicate that the local fractal dimension provides com-plementary information to conventional metrics, particularly in captu-ring scale-dependent surface variability.

Keywords: terrain roughness, local fractal dimension (LFD), terrain ruggedness index (TRI), vector rugged-ness measure (VRM), digital elevation model (DEM), GIS