Merged LiDAR based Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM) for England and Wales
https://doi.org/10.5285/34443359-64c0-4909-9f27-bb5d47f1153f
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This dataset is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence
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This high resolution (1m) spatial dataset provides elevation and terrain information for England and Wales. It includes a digital terrain model (DTM) and a digital surface model (DSM), created by merging LiDAR-based, 1m DTMs and DSMs published by the Environmental Agency in 2023 (England) and Natural Resources Wales in 2024 (Wales). These source data are originally distributed as many small, region‑specific files; this dataset consolidates them into unified, seamless DTM and DSM products for the whole of England and Wales.
The DTM represents the bare‑earth elevation, while the DSM captures elevations that include surface features such as buildings and vegetation. The DSM and DTM files are large (>250GB). To support efficient use and analysis, links to Python scripts and Jupyter notebooks are provided for subsetting the data to catchments and for performing terrain, hydrological, and canopy analysis.
The work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council under the Flood and Drought Research Infrastructure (FDRI). An overview of the FDRI project is available on the web at https://fdri.org.uk.
The DTM represents the bare‑earth elevation, while the DSM captures elevations that include surface features such as buildings and vegetation. The DSM and DTM files are large (>250GB). To support efficient use and analysis, links to Python scripts and Jupyter notebooks are provided for subsetting the data to catchments and for performing terrain, hydrological, and canopy analysis.
The work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council under the Flood and Drought Research Infrastructure (FDRI). An overview of the FDRI project is available on the web at https://fdri.org.uk.
Publication date: 2026-08-07
Format
TIFF
Spatial information
Study area
Spatial representation type
Raster
Spatial reference system
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid
Spatial resolution
1 metres
Temporal information
Temporal extent
2000-06-06 to 2022-04-02
Provenance & quality
This dataset combines the 1m LIDAR-derived DTM and DSM tiles from the Environmental Agency (England) and Natural Resources Wales (Wales) to produce seamless, cloud-optimised GeoTIFF files covering England and Wales. The merge is conducted using the open-source software GDAL (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19133683) on a high-memory compute node.
Licensing and constraints
This dataset is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence 
Cite this dataset as:
Barbedo, R.; Chambers, L.; Tso, C.M.; Cooper, H.; Smith, R.; Barr, A.; Samreen, F.; Brown, M.; Rudd, A.; Fry, M. (2026). Merged LiDAR based Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM) for England and Wales. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/34443359-64c0-4909-9f27-bb5d47f1153f
Correspondence/contact details
Other contacts
Publisher
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
info@eidc.ac.uk
Rights holder
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Custodian
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
info@eidc.ac.uk
Additional metadata
Keywords
Funding
Natural Environment Research Council