There are fewer large projects on the drawing board for the present or very near future than the surveying industry would wish. But try to see it positively, in line with the following examples:
- An inevitable growing demand for energy resources, not only fossil fuels but also the 'wet renewables' (wind, waves and tidal currents), will generate work in the future. Oil and gas exploration moves into deeper waters. This is in itself a challenge to our profession, while tapping the wet renewables touches almost every aspect of our profession, the actual surveying and data management aspects. Whichever form of energy (tidal current, wave or wind energy) will be chosen in a certain geographical area, surveying and offshore technology will be necessary to build and install it. The wet renewable industry may learn or ask help from the oil and gas industry, which has been around in the hostile environment of seas and oceans for quite a while; some web-sites on wet renewables: www.renews.biz, www.global-renewables.com, www.hornsrev.dk.
- A government that cuts its hydrographic capacity, for example by reorganising and disposing of vessels in response to budgetary restraints, will realise sooner or later that it has to maintain its wet infrastructure. This involves every aspect of our profession. Private enterprise can perfectly fulfil the executive task while government keeps control.
- In the Netherlands we should by now have learned to pay enough attention to our defence against the water. Like the whole of the rest of Western Europe, the Netherlands this year experienced a very dry summer. The drought caused some dikes situated on peat to slide without warning into the water. Photographs appeared in the papers of high-ranking civil servants peering into cracks in the dikes. But I very much doubt whether the same degree of attention was being paid to the underwater situation by our own profession. We need to make policymakers aware of the necessity to pay attention to things you cannot see: a difficult job, as opening a new road attracts more election votes then ordering a proper survey planning.

We recently decided on themes for the 2004 issues of Hydro international. In chronological order these are: AUVs, OI London, Bottom Classification and Sediment Transport, Survey under extreme conditions, Remote Sensing, Magnetometry & Gradiometry, Underwater Imaging, Quality Control, Shallow water, Tides and currents (modelling). To complete this list, the themes for the two remaining issues of 2003 are Seismic in Hydrography and Software in Hydrography. You are kindly invited to submit articles on any of these. However, as we deliberately try in each issue to publish contents that fall outside the theme so as to give everyone something of interest every month, any article aimed towards our readership is welcomed. We prefer to start the process by receiving a half A4 size abstract of the intended article.
Our planned Product Surveys for 2004 are on Underwater Positioning - USBL / LBL, Side Scan Sonar, Hydrographic GPS receivers, Digital Video, Motion Sensors (INS). Note for manufacturers: please make sure that you were mentioned in our last digital 'source book' and, if not, forward your details to us.

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