Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

ISSN: 1674-2834 (Print) 2376-6123 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/taos20

Another Fast and Simple DEM Depression-Filling

Algorithm Based on Priority Queue Structure

Liu Yong-He, Zhang Wan-Chang & Xu Jing-Wen

To cite this article: Liu Yong-He, Zhang Wan-Chang & Xu Jing-Wen (2009) Another Fast and
Simple DEM Depression-Filling Algorithm Based on Priority Queue Structure, Atmospheric and
Oceanic Science Letters, 2:4, 214-219, DOI: 10.1080/16742834.2009.11446800

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2009.11446800

© Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese

Academy of Sciences

Published online: 03 Jul 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 549

View related articles

Citing articles: 12 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=taos20
ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC SCIENCE LETTERS, 2009, VOL. 2, NO. 4, 214−219
Another Fast and Simple DEM Depression-Filling Algorithm Based on
Priority Queue Structure
LIU Yong-He1, ZHANG Wan-Chang2, and XU Jing-Wen1
1
Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
2
Center for Hydro-Sciences Research, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Received 20 April 2009; revised 27 June 2009; accepted 27 June 2009; published 16 July 2009
Abstract Some depression cells with heights lower than
their surrounding cells may often be found in Grid-based
digital elevation models (DEM) dataset due to sampling
errors. The depression-filling algorithm presented by
Planchon and Darboux works very quickly compared to
other published methods. Despite its simplicity and deli-
cacy, this algorithm remains difficult to understand due to
its three complex subroutines and its recursive execution.
Another fast algorithm is presented in this article. The
main idea of this new algorithm is as follows: first, the
DEM dataset is viewed as an island and the outer space as
an ocean; when the ocean level increases, the DEM cells
on the island’s boundary will be inundated; when a cell is
inundated for the first time, its elevation is increased to
the ocean level at that moment; after the ocean has inun-
dated the entire DEM, all of the depressions are filled.
The depression-removing processing is performed using a
priority queue. Theoretically, this new algorithm is a fast
algorithm despite the fact that it runs more slowly than
Planchon and Darboux’s method. Its time-complexity in
both the worst case and in an average case is O(8nlog2
(m)), which is close to O(n). The running speed of this
algorithm depends mainly on the insertion operation of
the priority queue. As shown by the tests, the depres-
sion-filling effects of this algorithm are correct and valid,
and the overall time consumption of this algorithm is less
than twice the time consumed by Planchon & Darboux’s
method for handling a DEM smaller than 2500×2500
cells. More importantly, this new algorithm is simpler and
easier to understand than Planchon and Darboux’s method.
This advantage allows the correct program code to be
written quickly.
Keywords: digital elevation models, depression remov-
ing, priority queue, quick algorithm
Citation: Liu, Y.-H., W.-C. Zhang, and J.-W. Xu, 2009:
Another fast and simple DEM depression-filling algo-
rithm based on priority queue structure, Atmos. Oceanic
Sci. Lett., 2, 214−219.
1 Introduction
Numerical hydrological models are powerful tools for
researching the hydrological characteristics of watersheds,
especially watersheds with large areas (Dodov and Fou-
foula-Georgiou, 2006; Gumbo et al., 2002; Wang and Yin,
Corresponding author: ZHANG Wan-Chang, zhangwc@tea.ac.cn
1998; Wolock and McCabe, 2000; Yang, 2005). Before
using these models, water drainage networks derived from
digital elevation models (DEM) must be prepared so that
runoffs can be calculated for each cell. Information about
drainage networks is derived from the DEM data, includ-
ing the flow direction from cell to cell, the water drainage
networks, and the associated sub-watersheds (Paz and
Collischonn, 2007; Turcotte et al., 2001).
Many studies focused on extracting drainage networks
have been published recently (Ahamed et al., 2002; Co-
lombo et al., 2007; Jana et al., 2007; Jenson and Domingue,
1988; Planchon and Darboux, 2002; Turcotte et al., 2001;
Wang and Yin, 1998). Commonly used DEM data for
extracting drainage networks are squared regular grid
based (Turcotte et al., 2001), while triangulated irregular
networks (TIN) are also used in some applications
(Tucker et al., 2001). Below, the DEM data are referred to
as regular squared grid based DEM.
When extracting drainage networks from any kind of
DEM data, there is a common problem of existing de-
pressed cells with elevations lower than any surrounding
cells that have no flow direction linking them to the main
river channel. This is because errors or noise exist in
DEM data and the actual detailed topographic structure is
generalized at a lower resolution by a DEM cell. There-
fore, before determining flow directions, these depres-
sions (known as pits in other publications) must be re-
moved by modifying the cells' elevations. This paper dis-
cusses a depression-filling method that prepares valid
DEM data for the approach of using an eight flow direc-
tion matrix (D8) because the D8 approach is a common
method for deriving drainage networks from raster DEM
data (Jenson and Domingue, 1988; McMaster, 2002;
Tribe, 1992; Turcotte et al., 2001). Similar methods for
other direction-calculating methods and other kinds of
DEM data can be obtained by extending the method used
for the D8 approach.
Some efforts have been made to resolve this depres-
sion-removing problem. Ocallaghan does this by smooth-
ing the DEM data; however, only tiny and shallow de-
pressions can be removed, while larger and deeper de-
pressions remain (Ocallaghan and Mark, 1984). The de-
pression-filling method in a real sense was first used to
study the roughness of soil, such as calculating a soil’s
depression storage capacity using DEM data (Moore and
Larson, 1979; Onstad, 1984; Planchon and Darboux, 2002;
Ullah and Dickinson, 1979). The idea of filling these de-
NO. 4 LIU ET AL.: A FAST ALGORITHM FOR DEPRESSION FILLING IN DEM DATA
pressions by increasing the cell’s elevation to the minimal
elevation of the cells that are found on the boundary of
the depression is recommended by Jenson and Domingue
(1988) and Marks et al. (1984). Based on this idea, Jenson
and Domingue presented their traditional algorithm. For
applications with small DEM data, this algorithm can
produce satisfying results. However, for applications with
a larger DEM dataset, small depressions are often em-
bedded in larger ones, and time-consuming scans per-
formed over the entire DEM dataset must be done more
than once in order to find the embedded or adjacent de-
pressions. The time complexity of these scans is O(n2). A
common DEM file of about 1 000 000 cells requires sev-
eral hours to accomplish this task. Moreover, this kind of
algorithm is very complex and difficult to implement.
In 2002, Planchon and Darboux published their fast
algorithm. This algorithm involved two stages; the first
stage inundates all DEM with a thick layer of water, and
the second stage drains the excess water. In the second
stage, they used two methods, namely scanning the whole
DEM grid and exploring cells via recursion. The former
method’s time complexity is O(n1.5) and the latter
method’s time complexity is O(n1.2) (Planchon and Dar-
boux, 2002). Compared to other algorithms, this algo-
rithm is so fast that it can decrease the time consumed
from hours to seconds. Despite its fast speed and delicacy,
the algorithm remains difficult to understand to some de-
gree because it requires three subroutines and still in-
volves recursive execution. This forces programmers to
spend a great amount of time to grasp the main idea of the
algorithm and test the program code.
The present article describes an additional fast depres-
sion-filling algorithm that is more simple but somewhat
slower than Planchon and Darboux’s algorithm. This al-
gorithm takes advantage of a commonly used data struc-
ture, the priority queue, its time complexity is close to
O(n) and it is easy to understand.
2 The algorithm
The idea behind this algorithm is to imagine the DEM
as an island surrounded by an ocean. At the start, the
ocean’s level is below all of the DEM cells, and the
ocean’s level then increases gradually. The first inundated
cells are those below the ocean’s level and lie on the
boundary of the DEM. When these cells are inundated,
the next to be inundated are the neighboring cells. When a
cell in a depression is inundated for the first time, its ele-
vation value should be set to the ocean level at that mo-
ment. When all of the DEM are inundated, all of the de-
pressions have been removed. Here, inundating means
that the ocean’s level is equal to or greater than the cell’s
elevation values.
Each time, the ocean level should increase to the eleva-
tion value of the lowest boundary cells neighboring the
ocean cells; there may be more than one such cell with the
same elevation. In order to find these cells quickly, a pri-
ority queue is used. A priority queue (PQ) is a data struc-
ture support that follows two operations: (1) add an ele-
ment to the PQ with an associated priority; (2) remove the
215
element from the PQ that has the highest priority and re-
turn it. A good PQ should support quick element insertion
and removal. Currently, most modern programming lan-
guages (Planchon and Darboux, 2002) have their own
built-in PQ structures based on a self-balancing binary
search tree. A insertion operation for such a PQ takes
O(log(n)) time and the removal operation takes O(1)
time .
Using a priority queue, every cell neighboring an ocean
cell (the boundary cell of the island) should be inserted
into the PQ and its elevation value should be taken as the
priority value associated with it. Each time a cell is re-
moved from the PQ, it is used as a seed for exploring
other island-boundary cells, and its corresponding priority
is taken as the current ocean level. From this seed, all
cells on the island boundary are explored recursively
without regard to whether their elevations are lower or
higher than the seed (with a height equal to the sea level).
This exploration method, known as the flood-filling ap-
proach, is used in image processing and computer graph-
ics. All of the found neighbor cells should be inserted into
the PQ, and those cells with elevations below the ocean
level are then set to the ocean level.
Before processing, the imagined ocean surrounds the
entire DEM, so that when the PQ is initialized all cells on
the boundary of the DEM data set should be inserted into
the PQ.
Another data structure that we used is a two-dimen-
sional integer-value or Boolean-value array with the same
size as the DEM. This data structure is used to mark
ocean cells with 0 and island cells with 1.
The pseudo-code for this algorithm is presented in Ta-
ble 1. No more than 25 lines of code are in this algorithm,
which is only about half of lines of the code used in
Planchon and Darboux’s method. Moreover, the code is
all written in one procedure, so it is very easy to under-
Table 1 Pseudo-code of the algorithm.
Procedure FillDepression(DEM)
new PQ
For row=0 to DEM.rowCount
//insert first column and last column
PQ.Insert(row, 0)
PQ.Insert(row, DEM.colCount-1)
End for
For col=1 to DEM.colCount-1
//insert first row and last row
PQ.Insert(0, col)
PQ.Insert(DEM.rowCount-1, col)
End For
marks=new double[DEM.rowCount][DEM.colCount](1)
//all elements initialized to 1
while PQ.length>0
cell=PQ.remove()
waterlevel=cell.elevation
for n in neighboursOf(cell)
if marks[n]=0
continue
If n.Elevation<=waterlevel
n.Elevation=waterlevel
End if
PQ.Insert(n)
End for
End while
End procedure
216 ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC SCIENCE LETTERS VOL. 2

stand and implement. When a cell is removed from the
PQ, its neighbors in eight directions are scanned, so the
time complexity of the main procedure is O(8n) (n is the
total number of cells in the DEM), while the insertion and
removal operations in the priority queue take O(log2(m))
(m is number of cells at the island boundary, so it is very
small compared to n). Here, the value of m varies over an
entire depression-removal process, and it determines the
time spent by each insertion. Each cell will be inserted
into and removed from the priority queue only once, so
the overall time complexity both in the worst cases and in
average cases is O(8nlog2(m)) and is close to O(n) .
3 Algorithm implementation using the C#
language
In popular languages like C++, Java, and Python, there
is always a built-in priority queue. Actually, not every
programming language has a built-in priority queue data
structure available, so there is a need to write the code for
a priority queue if none exists. In this section, a C# lan-
guage implementation of the depression filling algorithm
is described. In the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, there
is no built-in priority queue available, but there is a ge-
neric structure named SortedDictionary (SD), which is a
binary search tree with log2(n) retrieval, insertion or re-
moval. Its elements are key/value pairs, and every key
must be unique. The SD does not allow for multiple ele-
ments with the same key, but its elements can be defined
as any collection type, such as a queue structure. The or-
der of the cells with the same elevation in the priority
queue is not important because the minimal value of those
DEM cells neighboring the ocean is the only value re-
quired for the depression-filling algorithm. Thus, a SD
structure that has a queue structure as its element value
type is a good substitute for a real priority queue with no
unique keys. In order to understand the pseudo-code eas-
ily, the insertion subroutine of the SD-based priority
queue can be written as Table 2.
When a cell is inserted, the program should first check
whether the SD has a key equal to the cell elevation. If it
does, the cell should be added to the queue with its key
equal to the cell elevation; if not, then a queue object
hould be created and push the cell into this new one, then
add this queue object into the SD with the key equal to the
cell elevation. When an element is removed from the SD,
all cells with the same elevation are removed. With the
SD substituting for the priority queue, the algorithm must
be modified (Table 3).
Table 2 Insertion method of the SD-based priority queue (pseudo-
code).
Procedure SD.Insert(cell)
If SD.Contains(cell.elevation)
SD[cell.elevation].push(cell)
Else
SD[cell.elevation]=new Queue<Cell>
SD[cell.elevation].push(cell)
End if
End procedure

Table 3 The modified algorithm.

Procedure FillDepression(DEM)
SD=new SortedDictionary<double, Cell>
For row=0 to DEM.rowCount
SD.Insert( new Cell(row, 0) )
SD.Insert( new Cell(row, DEM.colCount-1) )
End for
For col=1 to DEM.colCount-1
SD.Insert( new Cell(0, col) )
SD.Insert( new Cell(DEM.rowCount-1, col) )
End For
marks=new double[DEM.rowCount][DEM.colCount](1) //all elements initialized to 1
while PQ.length>0
waterlevel=SD.FirstKey()
queue=SD[waterlevel] //get the element corresponding to the key of minValue
SD.Remove(waterlevel)
while queue.Count>0
for n in neighboursOf(cell)
if marks[n]=0
continue
else
marks[n]=0
end if
if n.Elevation<=waterlevel
if marks[n]!=2 //marks value with 2 indicate that it is visited
queue.Enqueue(n) // but hasn’t been marked as ocean
marks[n]=2
end if
n.Elevation=waterlevel
else
SD.Insert(n)
End if
End for
End while
End while
End procedure
NO. 4 LIU ET AL.: A FAST ALGORITHM FOR DEPRESSION FILLING IN DEM DATA
4 Performance tests
The algorithm in this paper can fill the depressions in
DEM correctly (Fig. 1). The algorithm in this paper and
the algorithm presented by Planchon and Darboux are
implemented using the C# language within the framework
of Microsoft .Net 2.0, and they are also tested using three
differently sized DEM datasets with dimensions of
977×667, 1201×1201, and 2500×2500 on a laptop with a
2.26 GHz Intel P8400 CPU and 768 MHz DDR-II mem-
ory. The extracted river nets of the first dataset depres-
sion-filled by these two algorithms are shown in Fig. 2.
This shows that the results produced by the two algo-
rithms are similar. In comparing the results of these two
algorithms, both show parallel river lines in the flat area,
but the patterns of these parallel river lines are different.
This effect may be related to the processing order of cells
that have the same height in the algorithms. Actually, the
drainage networks in flat areas may behave very randomly,
or can also be affected by human behavior. In this sense,
neither of the extracted results from the two algorithms
was more correct than the other. However, visually it
seemed that the result extracted by the algorithm pre-
sented in this paper was more reasonable because the par-
allel river lines in the flat areas are not as dense as those
Figure 1 A example of DEM with (a) depressions and (b) their coun-
terpart whose depressions were removed using the algorithm presented
in this paper. The highlighted cells are depressed cells.
217
extracted by Planchon’s algorithm.
The execution times of the two algorithms with the
three datasets are shown in Table 4. The results indicate
that these tests were not performed faster than the tests
performed by Planchon and Darboux in 2001 because
these new tests were executed by managed code under the
Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, which is slower than the
unmanaged C-language program used by Planchon and
Darboux. It appears that the execution time of the priority
queue-based algorithm is similar to but slower than the
time taken by Planchon and Darboux’s algorithm. Com-
pared to Planchon’s algorithm, the cell numbers handled
per millisecond by a priority queue-based algorithm de-
creased slowly as the size of the datasets increased, so this
priority queue-based algorithm is not slow. In this case,
it is important to note that the SD’s element insertion op-
Figure 2 River nets extracted from the first dataset (size of 977×667)
depression-filled by the two algorithms. (a) the shadow effects of the
DEM data, (b) depression-filled by Planchon and Darboux’s algorithm,
and (c) depression-filled by algorithm presented in this article. The other
dataset is not presented here because it is very large and its extracted
river channel cannot be shown clearly in this paper.
218 ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC SCIENCE LETTERS
Table 4 Execution time of the 2 algorithms.
Planchon and Darboux’s algorithm
Cell number
Execution time (ms) cells per ms Execution time (ms)
977×667 1937 336
1201×1201 3937 336
2500×2500 16687 374
eration takes the same O(log2(n)) time as the actual prior-
ity queue’s insertion operation, but its removal operation
also takes a time of O(log2(n)), which is slower than that
of the actual priority queue’s removal. Like the elements
operated on by SD, the queue object’s insertion and re-
moval takes O(1) time. Thus, this SD-substituted priority
queue is slower than an actual priority queue. The slow-
ness of this algorithm compared to Planchon’s algorithm
is mainly explained by the priority queue, which has a
time complexity of O(log(n)) for insertion and removal
operation of the elements.
5 Discussion and conclusions
The depression-filling algorithm presented by Plan-
chon and Darboux is quite fast compared to other pub-
lished methods (Planchon and Darboux, 2002). Despite its
simplicity and delicacy, this algorithm is still difficult to
understand due to the three complex subroutines and the
recursive execution.
The additional fast algorithm presented in this article
uses a new approach: first, the DEM dataset is regarded as
an island and the outer space as an ocean, and as the
ocean level is increased step by step, DEM cells on the
island boundary are inundated. When a cell is inundated
for the first time, the elevation of this cell increases to the
ocean level at that time. After the ocean has inundated the
entire DEM island, all depressions are filled. All of the
boundary cells near the water are pushed into a priority
queue, and with each step the cell with the lowest eleva-
tion is removed from the priority queue, so that it is inun-
dated first. Theoretically, this new algorithm is also a fast
algorithm, despite the fact that it runs slower than Plan-
chon and Darboux’s method. Its time-complexity is
O(8nlog2(m)), where n represents the total number of cells
and m represents the number of cells at the island bound-
ary. Because m is very small compared to n, the time
complexity is close to O(n).
In this paper, a C# language-implemented depres-
sion-filling method based on the algorithm presented in
this paper is introduced. Because there is no real priority
queue available in the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, the
SD structure combined with a queue structure was used to
realize the functions of a priority queue. The program
code was modified for use in the SD-based algorithm. The
tests were performed by depression-filling three differ-
ently sized DEM, and the results showed that the algo-
rithm presented in this paper is fast, although slightly
slower than Planchon’s method.
The running speed of this algorithm is mainly depend-
ent on the insertion and removal operations of the priority
VOL. 2
Priority queue-based Algorithm Execution speed ratio of Planchon’s
algorithm to the priority queue-based
Cells per ms algorithm
2000 325 1.034
4953 291 1.155
28656 218 1.71
queue. If a real priority queue is used instead of using the
structure of a SD combined with a queue object, the algo-
rithm may be more efficient. The overall time consump-
tion of the algorithm was no more than twice that con-
sumed by Planchon & Darboux’s method. The PQ-based
algorithm provides an alternative to Planchon & Dar-
boux’s fast algorithm.
The elementary coding used by this new depression-
filling algorithm requires only 25 lines, which is about
half the length of the code used by Planchon’s method.
Furthermore, the main code for this new algorithm can be
written in one procedure, while the code in Planchon’s
method requires three or four procedures. The use of a
priority queue structure makes the algorithm easier to
understand for users and programmers and will save them
time. The advantages of this priority queue-based algo-
rithm are its simplicity and intelligibility, which make it
very easy to write correct program code quickly.
Acknowledgements. We are very much indebted to Hu Yong-Hong
for his help in providing us with DEM datasets for the algorithm
tests. This study was financially supported by the National Basic
Research Program of China (Grant No. 2006CB400502), the Pro-
motion of 100 Young Talent Scientist Project of the Chinese Acad-
emy of Sciences (8-057493), and the Special Meteorology Project
(GYHY(QX)2007-6-1).
References
Ahamed, T., K. G. Rao, and J. Murthy, 2002: Automatic extraction
of tank outlets in a sub-watershed using digital elevation models,
Agricultural Water Management, 57(1), 1–10.
Colombo, R., R. V. Vogt, P. Soille, et al., 2007: Deriving river net-
works and catchments at the European scale from medium reso-
lution digital elevation data, Catena, 70(3), 296–305.
Dodov, B. A., and E. Foufoula-Georgiou, 2006: Floodplain mor-
phometry extraction from a high-resolution digital elevation
model: A simple algorithm for regional analysis studies, IEEE
Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., 3(3), 410–413.
Gumbo, B., N. Munyamba, G. Sithole, et al., 2002: Coupling of
digital elevation model and rainfall-runoff model in storm
drainage network design, Phys. Chem. Earth, 27, 755–764.
Jana, R., T. V. Reshmidevi, P. S. Arun, et al., 2007: An enhanced
technique in construction of the discrete drainage network from
low-resolution spatial database, Computers & Geosci., 33(6),
717–727.
Jenson, S. K., and J. O. Domingue, 1988: Extracting topographic
structure from digital elevation data for geographic informa-
tion-system analysis, Photogrammetric Engineering Remote
Sens., 54(11), 1593–1600.
Marks, D., J. Dozier, and J. Frew, 1984: Automated basin delinea-
tion from digital elevation data, Geo-Processing, 2(3), 299–311.
McMaster, K. J., 2002: Effects of digital elevation model resolution
on derived stream network positions, Water Resour. Res., 38(4),
131–139.
Moore, I. D., and C. L. Larson, 1979: Estimating micro-relief sur-
NO. 4 LIU ET AL.: A FAST ALGORITHM FOR DEPRESSION FILLING IN DEM DATA
face storage from point data, Trans. Asae, 22(5), 1073–1077.
Ocallaghan, J. F., and D. M. Mark, 1984: The extraction of drainage
networks from digital elevation data, Computer Vision Graphics
Image Processing, 28(3), 323–344.
Onstad, C. A., 1984: Depressional storage on tilled soil surfaces,
Trans. Asae, 27(3), 729–732.
Paz, A. R., and W. Collischonn, 2007: River reach length and slope
estimates for large-scale hydrological models based on a rela-
tively hill high-resolution digital elevation model, J. Hydrol.,
343, 127–139.
Planchon, O., and F. Darboux, 2002: A fast, simple and versatile
algorithm to fill the depressions of digital elevation models, Ca-
tena, 46, 159–176.
Tribe, A., 1992: Automated recognition of valley lines and drainage
networks from grid digital elevation models—A review and a
new method, J. Hydrol., 139, 263–293.
Tucker, G. E., S. T. Lancaster, N. M. Gasparini, et al., 2001: An
object-oriented framework for distributed hydrologic and geo-
219
morphic modeling using triangulated irregular networks, Com-
puters & Geosci., 27(8), 959–973.
Turcotte, R., J. P. Fortin, A. N. Rousseau, et al., 2001: Determina-
tion of the drainage structure of a watershed using a digital ele-
vation model and a digital river and lake network, J. Hydrol.,
240, 225–242.
Ullah, W., and W. T. Dickinson, 1979: Quantitative description of
depression storage using a digital surface model. 1. Determina-
tion of depression storage, J. Hydrol., 42, 63–75.
Wang, X. H., and Z. Y. Yin, 1998: A comparison of drainage net-
works derived from digital elevation models at two scales, J.
Hydrol., 210, 221–241.
Wolock, D. M., and G. J. McCabe, 2000: Differences in topographic
characteristics computed from 100- and 1000-m resolution digi-
tal elevation model data, Hydrol. Processes, 14(6), 987–1002.
Yang, X. J., 2005: Use of LIDAR elevation data to construct a
high-resolution digital terrain model for an estuarine marsh area,
Int. J. Remote Sens., 26(23), 5163–5166