INIS Hydro Seabed Mapping Project

Since January 2011, an ambitious EU-funded seabed mapping project has been surveying and charting 7 key marine areas off the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the west coast of Scotland. Their mission? To harmonise and integrate cross-border baseline marine data collection between the UK and Ireland.

Led by the UK’s Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA), INIS Hydro is a groundbreaking scientific partnership between 7 leading marine organisations, drawn from across the British Isles:
· Agri-food & Biosciences Institute (AFBI);
· Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI);
· Irish Marine Institute (MI);
· Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB);
· Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS); and
· UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO).
Tasked with gathering over 1,400km2 of high-quality seabed mapping data to the IHO Order 1a standard, the project partnership has been collecting high-resolution multibeam bathymetry, geo-coded backscatter and seabed sediment data off Ireland (Dundalk Bay), Northern Ireland (the south-east Mourne Coast, Carlingford Lough and Dundrum Bay), and Scotland (the Firth of Lorne and off the Mull of Kintyre), for the past 3 years.

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