Deforestation corrected SRTM DEM

The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) derived from data of the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) has been broadly used as base for extraction of hydrological metrics. However the fact that the SRTM DEM maps the canopy of the vegetation instead of the terrain elevation precludes the use of the data for forests with presence of patches of deforestation. Deforestation features induce the presence of false drainage channels on the extraction of hydrological metrics on the SRTM DEM. We identified deforestation features along the area between the Purus and Madeira Rivers using the dataset of the PRODES project (http://www.obt.inpe.br/prodes/). The polygons of deforestation were corrected using a software developed in IDL/ENVI which allow to raise the pixel values of the SRTM DEM. The correction of deforestation polygons aims to minimize errors related to extraction of drainage networks and topographic features on the SRTM DEM.