The elevation of Earth’s terrain is constantly changing through volcanoes, geohazards, mining, subsidence, urban growth, and other events and processes. Tracking terrain elevation is essential for understanding the forces that shape solid Earth and how human activity can alter the landscape. Terrain elevation data is often used to create digital elevation models (DEMs), which provide high-resolution depictions of the land surface and are needed to identify rapid or significant land surface changes. 

NASA provides terrain elevation measurements from aerial and satellite instruments that can be ideal for creating DEMs, analyzing the effects of landslides and floods, assessing ice sheet thickness, improving topographical maps, and many more applications.