Why in news?
INDGEOID Version 1.0 is a new mathematical model which was launched by Survey of India (SOI).
What’s the problem in measuring heights?
- A place’s height is measured with reference to the surrounding sea.
- E.g. Mount Everest is 8,848 metres when measured from the surface of the sea but may have a different value if measured from the ocean floor.
- An expedition, in 1999, that measured Mount Everest using a GPS receiver found that it was 10 metres higher.
- Similarly several measurements, of dams and skyscrapers are affected depending on whether they are computed by traditional surveying or satellites.
What is an INDGEOID?
- The Survey of India developed a system called INDGEOID Version 1 that will automatically correct for the error in GPS and sea-level measurement of structures in India.
- A geoid model of the earth tries to account for the all the undulation and assumes an earth ‘surface’ where the oceans were smoothened out and gravity the same everywhere.
- Map-making authorities employ a mathematical calculation to ‘correct for the geoid’ and thus, the true height of a structure or landform.
- The most immediate and notable beneficiary of this would be Mount Everest.
- Mount Everest, it’s been claimed, has lost a few metres due to the Nepal earthquake of 2015 that killed thousands.
- To re-ascertain this, the Survey of India will conduct a new GPS-based measurement of the mountain peak.
- This will incorporate the new INDGEOID measurement.
Source: The Hindu
