Variation and Uncertainty in Bathymetric Slope Calculations Using Geographic Information Systems

Bathymetry data from multibeam echosounders and other acoustic sources are now widely available in the form of digital terrain models, which are conveniently displayed as raster grids in desktop geographic information systems. Calculation of terrain variables such as slope is a simple push-button operation in most geographic information systems; however, as we demonstrate here, there can be a great variation in the slope values obtained due to computation algorithms and resolution or analysis scale. This article also demonstrates how Monte Carlo simulation can be used to visualise uncertainty in the underlying bathymetry dataset and also how this uncertainty impacts on slope calculations.