Digital terrain model of the watercourses Elbe and Lower Havel (Germany), DGM-W Elbe 2022 project

The high-resolution digital terrain model (DTM) of the waterways Elbe and Lower Havel (DGM-W Elbe 2022) comprises both the terrain on land and the bottom of rivers, channels and lakes. It was produced and published by Germany’s Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), on behalf of the River Basin Community Elbe (RBC Elbe, FGG Elbe). The work was supported by the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV) and the surveying offices and water management administrations of six German states - Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein. The data cover both the area around the inland water stretches of the Elbe from the Czech-German border to the village of Zollenspieker (part of the city of Hamburg) and the Lower Havel waterway from the town of Rathenow to its confluence with the Elbe. Since the dataset has a large coverage of 4,043 km², it is split into 62 sections. They were either labelled *HW in case of flood relevant areas (in German: “hochwasser-relevante Gebiete”) or *AU in case of historical floodplains (in German: “Altauengebiete”). Financing was divided according to these categories: In the HW areas, the project was co-funded by BfG, the WSV and the federal states, while in the AU areas, BfG covered all project costs. For each section we provide hillshade (*HS), height maps (*NHN), slope (*sl) and source flags (*sc). The data are available as GeoTIFF-files (resolution 1 meter); Coordinate reference frame: ETRS89.DREF91.R16; Coordinate projection: UTM Zone 33N; EPSG-Code: 25833; Height reference system: DHHN2016, national vertical reference frame in Germany (2022). For further information please contact us. Citation short: BfG et al. / i.A. FGG Elbe (2025)