IDW interpolation dataset of ash and tephra deposition following the 2021 Tajogaite volcanic eruption on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain

The compiled dataset is the result of a field collection campaign to measure the depth of the ash and tephra layer in the aftermath of the 2021 volcanic eruption (Tajogaite) on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.

The dataset consists of two files: a shapefile and a GeoTIFF raster. The shapefile is a point layer file that displays the location of all ash depth measurements (415 points) taken in the field. To improve our sampling near the crater, where safety and time constraints prevented field collection, we manually sampled additional drone-based measurements (66 points). We combined these data into a single dataset ("ash_depth"; 481 total points) that was then used as input for a spatial interpolation using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW).

The IDW interpolation was performed using the Spatial Analyst toolbox in ArcMap 10.8.1 (Esri, 2021). As an exact deterministic interpolation, IDW estimates pixels values of unknown points by using average distance and a weight between sample points (Watson & Philip, 1985). This is ideal for a dataset that includes many field measurements since IDW interpolates between the minimum and maximum of the collected data. The model parameters were adjusted manually but the best results were yielded using the default settings, with the exception of the output cell size. The output cell size was calibrated to 2 m. The IDW parameters can be viewed in Table 1.

The sample point locations were resampled from the raster file to estimate the Root Square Mean Error (RMSE) and were saved to the shapefile as "ash_idw". The RMSE of the dataset is 0.34 m. For further inquiries please contact Christopher Shatto (email: christopher.shatto@uni-bayreuth.de).

Please cite the data paper link to this repository as: 

C. Shatto, F. Weiser and A. Walentowitz et al., Volcanic tephra deposition dataset based on interpolated field measurements following the 2021 Tajogaite Eruption on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, Data in Brief, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2023.109949