What is contour bias in a DEM?

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12-05-2018 11:33 AM
JoshuaBrengel
New Contributor III

Recently, I was told the following picture, which shows TWI (yellow cells) on a mixed forest/terraced agricultural landscape- was generated from a DEM that likely exhibits contour bias:

enter image description here

Can someone please explain to me what contour bias is and how it happens in a DEM created from base LiDAR data?  I assume it somehow refers to the overemphasis of contours that may naturally exists in LiDAR elevation data or even worse, the creation of artificial contours in the DEM?  Is this caused by the interpolation and LiDAR processing methods when the DEM was created?  This is of significant concern to me, as we hope to share the TWI with a large number of users.  Thank you!

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