NOAA’s ENC Training Programme
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NOAA’s ENC Training Programme

The key objective of NOAA’s ENC Training Programme is to educate Hydrographic Offices (HOs) on ENC workflow in the Office of Coast Survey’s Marine Chart Division (MCD). The workflow includes: acceptance of new sources, data compilation, validation and quality control, distribution and contracting. A nine-day training session was held in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, from 1-9 March 2016. The attendees were cartographers from the Hydrographic Department at the Survey of Israel (SOI).

By Dr Shachak Pe’eri, JHC/UNH and Sean Legeer, Office of Coast Survey, NOAA, USA

The training began with a meeting between Limor Gur Arie, the head of the Hydrographic Department - SOI and the chief of the Marine Chart Division, John Nyberg to match expectations on the visit, emphasising that the focus of the training is to provide a comprehensive overview of ENC policy and production at NOAA. Lead instructor, Sean Legeer, added that the overall goal is to provide the participants with the ability to conduct quality management. ENC production can require years of experience and many HOs around the world use contractors in their workflow.

Julia Powell and John Macek provided an overview on NOAA’s Nautical Chart Manual using current IHO S-57 and S-58 standards and the potential use and future of IHO S-101. Sean Legeer, with the support of Craig Green and Jeff Gomez from ESRI, helped the participants to configure and troubleshoot an ENC project in an ESRI ArcGIS environment. Sean Legeer guided the participants in NOAA procedures of ENC processing and validation. Sean, Craig and Jeff also discussed workflow issues regarding importing datasets, display and best practices. In addition, the participants received a set of presentations that included: a review of incoming datasets, Source Document Registration and management (DREG) and requirements for MCD acceptance  by Lance Roddy and Chris Libeau; Format and Distribution Systems Branch activities (OCS Portal, ArcGIS Online Viewer, Chart Production Viewer, Workflow Status, Workflow Analysis, Source Location and ENC online) presented by Jessie Friedmann, Leland Snyder and Joel Harrington; Critical Information from notices to mariners by Travis Newman and Daniel Black; Remote Sensing Division’s Shoreline mapping and VDATUM by Gretchen Imahori, Stephen White and Chris Sloan; and Boundaries and disputes by Tara Wallace and Leland Snyder.

The SOI participants were very grateful for their training and were able to produce and validate two ENCs using real-world Israeli data. The participants’ interaction with the presenters during the workshop was very positive. In addition to the ENC production procedures, the mechanics of contracting and outsourcing of production was reviewed by John Barber. Based on this successful training pilot, NOAA is planning to offer one-week training to other HOs abroad in the future. These training programmes will foster a broader knowledge base for hydrographers and cartographers and will widen the network of users that can evaluate ENCs.  The training will also strengthen international relationships between HOs around the world and should help to build ENC production capacity.

 

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