AHS Education Award 2006

The AHS president and Education Award Board are delighted to advise that there were sixteen applicants for the 2006 award. These included research proposals from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Australia, covering a wide scope of worthy topics. It is with pleasure that the 2006 award be presented to Nathan Daw Quadros for his extensive research towards the marine cadastre and tidal datum in Australia.

The shortcomings of past and current coastline mapping techniques and the move towards implementation of an Australia marine cadastre have prompted consideration of ways to improve and automate the delineation of tidal lines. One such proposal is based on a mathematical approach that would avoid the need for visual interpretation of aerial or satellite imagery. It would also facilitate regular and rapid tidal-line re-determination as required, e.g. to account for the ambulatory nature of tidal lines and any significant changes in sea level.

In concept, the mathematical approach is simple. It relies upon the existence of an appropriately accurate and up-to-date digital terrain model (DTM) of the foreshore, and a similarly reliable digital tide-model. Given the existence of these two fundamental datasets, it becomes a relatively routine matter to use the tide-model to define the relevant tidal datum and then to compute the intersection of the specified tidal datum with the foreshore terrain data to produce the equivalent tidal line.

As a case-study the research is currently focusing on delineating tidal lines along the New South Wales coast from Jervis Bay to Port Macquarie. This region has provided more coastal terrain data obtained from various sources than any other region in Australia. By intersecting the regional hydrodynamic tide-model with the terrain data we are able to efficiently generate tidal lines.

For more information about the project, seminars and publications go to http://www.geom.unimelb.edu.au/maritime and view information related to the tidal interface project.

Hydro 2007

Planning continues for Hydro 2007 and the organising committee will soon be in a position to start providing details and a Call for Papers etc through its website at www.ahs.asn.au. As from February the page links to the conference site, from which all the necessary paperwork will be downloadable. The theme of HYDRO 2007 is to be ‘Focus on Asia: Meeting the Interface Challenges of the Littoral Zone’ and the venue is to be the Cairns Convention Centre, Cairns, Australia from 22nd to 24th November 2007. An industry trade exhibition will commence from 21st November 2007 and the Austra–lian Hydrographic Service symposium will be held from 19th to 21st November at the same venue. Papers and presentations will be welcome as addressing subjects outlined below.
Sessions
We will be attempting to reflect the Asian perspective throughout the entire programme. We are also exploring a number of workshops and are keen to hear from anyone with a relevant workshop proposal. We will be running a number of keynote and concurrent sessions including:


Regional Issues
- international collaboration
- Asian initiatives
- regional bodies of the International Hydrographic Organization.

Successful Government and Industry Partnerships
- role of national hydrographic agencies
- impact of policy on industry
- improved policy delivery - joint delivery
- recent initiatives
- changing imperatives.

Improved Performance
- strategic planning for hydrography
- research commercialisation
- business development.

Education
- national requirement
- meeting the national requirement
- initiatives
- educational and training standards.

Hydrographic Practice and Technology
- standards in hydrographic surveying
- surveying for the environment
- military hydrographic requirements
- offshore and resource surveys
- surveying using unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs)
- innovative techniques
- surveying in remote regions
- contact hydrographic surveying
- data acquisition
- data management and charting
- new and future products.

Heritage
- Australian on the map
- significant surveyors and surveys.

Scientific and Industry
- innovation
- industry perspectives.

Contact

Conference managers and further information:
Conference Solutions Pty Ltd, as agent for AHS
PO Box 238 Deakin West
ACT Australia 2600
Tel 61 2 6286 3000
Fax 61 2 6285 3001
Email hydro2007@con-sol.com