Review of methods for determining the gravitational effect of topographic masses

Abstract

The text discusses methods used in geodesy and geophysics to determine the gravitational effect of topographic masses. Three main methods — utilizing the formulas of the right parallelepiped, spherical tesseroid, and flat tesseroid — are applied within Bjerhammar's reduction scheme. The correction for the terrain's gravitational effect is evaluated on a digital terrain model. The research concludes that, overall, the three methods are practically equivalent, even in rough topographic conditions. However, in one test of Bouguer anomalies, formulas involving tesseroids and flat tesseroids show a slightly lower root mean square (RMS) compared to those using standard right parallelepiped formulas.