The High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM), is part of the CanElevation Series created in support of the National Elevation Data Strategy implemented by Natural Resources Canada. In the southern part of the country (south of the productive forest line), more accurate elevation is needed for forest inventory, coastal monitoring, flood plain mapping, precision agriculture, infrastructure, etc. This 1 meter mosaic represents the current and continuous coverage of high-resolution elevation data available in Canada and is available as Digital Surface Model (DSM) and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) datasets. Source data for HRDEM mosaics is acquired through multiple projects with different partners. Since data is being acquired by project, there is no integration or edgematching done between projects. The tiles are aligned within each project.

OpenTopography provides access to the one meter mosaic portion of the HRDEM collection covering much of southern Canada. We do not provide access to the 2-meter portion of HRDEM because it is primarily based on ArcticDEM, which is already available as a separate dataset in OpenTopography. Therefore, users seeking elevation data for northern Canada are encouraged to use the ArcticDEM collection or download the data directly from NRCAN.