Program Benefits and Uses

By 3D Elevation Program

A core mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is to provide information that leads to reduced loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure from hazards like landslides, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and wildfires. 3DEP data provides 3D information of the Earth including, terrain, vegetation characteristics and human-made features, enabling production of mapping products.

Benefits of Elevation Data

Structure from Motion (SfM) elevation model

The 3D Nation and NEEA Studies were conducted to document national requirements for 3D elevation data, estimate the benefits and costs of meeting those requirements, and evaluate multiple national program scenarios for meeting user needs.

Learn About Benefits

3DEP Uses in the News

3DEP provides benefits to a range of Federal, State, local, Tribal and private industry applications. Learn about 3DEP's high-resolution topographic data applications from our community of users.

3DEP in the News

3DEP for Disaster Events

The Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements Act, 2018 (P.L. 115-123), with partner funding, supports recovery and rebuilding decisions from recent hurricanes and wildfires to complete data coverage of the impacted areas.

Disaster Events

Benefits

The 3D Nation Elevation Requirements and Benefits Study (2022) estimated that acquiring higher quality 3DEP data at an increased frequency has the potential to provide more than \$7.6 billion in benefits to Federal, State, Tribal, Territorial, and local governments and to private and nonprofit organizations every year, in addition to myriad societal benefits. The publicly available lidar, IfSAR, and derived elevation datasets foster cooperation and improve decision-making among all levels of government and other stakeholders. Lidar data are transforming flood risk management, infrastructure and construction management, natural resources management, water supply and quality, homeland security, law enforcement, disaster response, and emergency management, and other applications.

Reduced Acquisition Costs and Risks

A funded national program will provide the following:

Reduced unit costs by pooling funding with other partners

Reduced unit costs through the economy of scale achieved through larger project sizes

Access to qualified and experienced mapping firms under contract to acquire and process data

More consistent data from standardized acquisition and larger project areas

The opportunity to “buy up” higher quality data for specialized applications

The opportunity to receive 3DEP cost-share funding to acquire light detection and ranging (lidar) data

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) programmatic infrastructure that issues and manages data acquisition contracts and inspects, accepts, and distributes point cloud and derived data products; reduced costs for not replicating the same infrastructure in multiple agencies

Increased State, local, Tribal, and other data acquisition partnerships through advanced planning and earlier notification of opportunities enabled by a defined, stable Federal acquisition budget

High-Quality Data

For the conterminous United States, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories, the USGS and its partners acquire aerial lidar data. Quality level 2 data have a minimum nominal pulse spacing of 0.7 meters and a vertical error of 10 centimeters, measured as root mean square error in the elevation (z) dimension (RMSEz). Statewide for Alaska, quality level 5 IfSAR data are acquired that have a vertical error of 185 centimeters RMSEz. The data must have been acquired during the previous eight years.