USGS LiDAR progress in Montana - more seamless 1-meter DEMs
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Glenn Borkenhagen
May 5, 2026, 8:22:10 AMMay 5
to MAGIP Listserv, Troy Blandford
Greetings to MAGIP -
Since my initial post on the new USGS seamless 1-meter (S1M) bare-earth digital-elevation-model (DEM) 10-km x 10-km tiles back on 11 February 2026 I have been checking sometime around the first of each new month to see if there have been any coverage additions in the Wyoming - Montana region. Until this month (May 2026) there have not been any significant changes.
New coverage is of a little less than 4,300 square miles primarily in Gallatin and Park counties, along with small amounts in Broadwater, Meagher, and Sweet Grass counties. This includes the communities of Livingston, Wilsall, Clyde Park, Bozeman, Belgrade, Manhattan, and Big Sky.
A georeferenced PDF map showing the current coverage area in Montana is available here. The yellow area on that map is the area covered as of the initial post in February 2026 and the red area has been added since then.
Right now the S1M coverage area appears on the image currently provided at The National Map Download when you click on "Show" and data is available for downloading from that easy-to-use source.
So why does this matter?? Likely the biggest advantage of the seamless DEMs is in cases where the area of interest includes multiple LiDAR projects. For instance, Gallatin County appears to involve four different LiDAR projects. Gathering and/or updating LiDAR data for the entire county could be a time-consuming endeavor and there could be gaps and discontinuities between the various projects.
As shown on the USGS Seamless 1-meter introductory page in the caption to Figure 3, data from previous individual projects is combined "prioritizing the most recent or highest quality lidar dataset." That page also includes section titled "What makes the S1M different from existing 3DEP 1-meter DEMS?" that is worth reading as well as a link to a 27-page paper describing the blending method used. The expressed goal is to eventually provide a seamless DEM product covering the entire conterminous / contiguous United States.
An informative article from the USGS Science Data Catalog is found here and is a good read if you are interested in learning more about this product.
Currently the USGS _ LidarExplorer does not seem to be offering the S1M data.
Also, the S1M data is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and from Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Monday 04 May 2026 the S1M data was available via both of those methods.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
Since my initial post on the new USGS seamless 1-meter (S1M) bare-earth digital-elevation-model (DEM) 10-km x 10-km tiles back on 11 February 2026 I have been checking sometime around the first of each new month to see if there have been any coverage additions in the Wyoming - Montana region. Until this month (May 2026) there have not been any significant changes.
New coverage is of a little less than 4,300 square miles primarily in Gallatin and Park counties, along with small amounts in Broadwater, Meagher, and Sweet Grass counties. This includes the communities of Livingston, Wilsall, Clyde Park, Bozeman, Belgrade, Manhattan, and Big Sky.
A georeferenced PDF map showing the current coverage area in Montana is available here. The yellow area on that map is the area covered as of the initial post in February 2026 and the red area has been added since then.
Right now the S1M coverage area appears on the image currently provided at The National Map Download when you click on "Show" and data is available for downloading from that easy-to-use source.
So why does this matter?? Likely the biggest advantage of the seamless DEMs is in cases where the area of interest includes multiple LiDAR projects. For instance, Gallatin County appears to involve four different LiDAR projects. Gathering and/or updating LiDAR data for the entire county could be a time-consuming endeavor and there could be gaps and discontinuities between the various projects.
As shown on the USGS Seamless 1-meter introductory page in the caption to Figure 3, data from previous individual projects is combined "prioritizing the most recent or highest quality lidar dataset." That page also includes section titled "What makes the S1M different from existing 3DEP 1-meter DEMS?" that is worth reading as well as a link to a 27-page paper describing the blending method used. The expressed goal is to eventually provide a seamless DEM product covering the entire conterminous / contiguous United States.
An informative article from the USGS Science Data Catalog is found here and is a good read if you are interested in learning more about this product.
Currently the USGS _ LidarExplorer does not seem to be offering the S1M data.
Also, the S1M data is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and from Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Monday 04 May 2026 the S1M data was available via both of those methods.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
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