TRI, TPI, or Roughness

Question

I am working on a site selection projection where I will be unable to perform any in situ observations. A key component of the selection process is the ruggedness of the underlying terrain.

I plan on using GDALdem to create the derived ruggedness maps. I have read both the Wilson, et al. 2007 paper and the GDALdem documentation. While both offer insight into the algorithms used to generate the indices, only the Wilson paper offers an assessment of index suitability.

It is essential, because I can not perform in situ observations, that the index selected over estimate the surface roughness.

In your experience, which index have you utilized, for what application, and why?

Answer 1

I actually like using the Rugosity index from Lundblad et al. http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/esri04/p1208_cc.html http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc04/docs/pap1208.pdf

(I think this was only published as a paper presentation, but it is one of the most cited posters in oceanography.)