The impact of terrestrial gravity data density on geoid accuracy: case study Bilogora in Croatia

Abstract

One of the main challenges in physical geodesy today is achieving the 1-centimetre gravimetric quasi-geoid model, since a model of such accuracy could be used in the definition and realisation of the height reference frame. One of the main obstacles in this challenge is the lack of terrestrial gravity data or its uneven distribution. Therefore, the main question arises: what density of gravity points is necessary in order to obtain a gravimetric quasi-geoid model with an accuracy of 1 centimetre or even better? In this simulated study, the results show a trend of decreasing RMS related to the sparser dataset used in computation, leading to the conclusion that the determination of the sub-centimetre quasi-geoid model is no longer a theory, but can be achieved with the exact density of terrestrial gravity data: gravity observation stations have to be distributed no farther than 500 m from one another. When dealing with a very rough topography, the distance should be even shorter.