Australasian Hydrographic Society

News
East Australia Region
The East Australia Region of the Australasian Hydrographic Society held a General Meeting, hosted by David Garforth and his Bruttour International team, at ‘The Ranch’, Eastwood, New South Wales, on the evening of Tuesday 11th May 2004. There was a very good overall attendance, with EAR Chairman John Maschke and AHS President Paul Hornsby both making the journey up from Canberra. We also had the pleasure of having Greg Halls with us, after many years of absence working in Darwin and the Northern Territory. We had a slight change in format in that after dealing with the meeting agenda we all repaired to the Bistro, where the ‘Inner Man’ was satisfied with viands and the fruits of the vine and the hop fields. After this we returned to the meeting room, where David Garforth entertained us with a talk entitled, ‘Tetrodes to Mosfets (or 15metres to 5mms)’. This was a review of electronic position fixing from the earlier World War 2 systems, RDF, Radar, Gee, early Decca etc, through to the present-day systems. David rounded off his talk with some of his experiences when he was involved with surveys in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Nigeria and Indonesia. This latter part of his presentation was illustrated with images, with some of the pictures of dam development in the above countries, bordered to the north by the Aral Sea and to the south by the Tien Shan ranges, being absolutely amazing to us.

Benelux Comments
The reported comments made at the Third Annual General Meeting of the Benelux Society, ‘THS Proposal’, Hydro international, April 2004, Volume 8, No 3, caused us much discussion as an agendum of the General Meeting. It can be reported that Australasia is very disappointed with the Benelux approach to the development of the International Federation of Hydrographic Societies. It is also somewhat alarmed at their statement, "However the vote was 37 to two for continuing attempts to establish and join an IFHS with a simple structure", if this means that Benelux is contemplating putting its energy into the development of what may be described as a rival international body.
We in Australasia would too like to see a structure and constitution that is as simple as possible for all concerned. We too agree that has not yet been achieved. But we do strongly feel that in order to achieve our goals, Benelux would best help the international scene by wholeheartedly backing the system we have at present, which they initially helped to develop. We had to start somewhere and get a basic structure and constitution in place and, imperfect though the current system may be, it is a vast improvement on what we previously had, as evinced by an improving membership at national levels.
We in Australasia believe that the simplest and quickest way ahead to a satisfactory and effective IFHS, and one attractive to new members, is to work as a cohesive team in satisfying all administrative demands to close down the old THS and to then devote all effort to amending our present structure and constitution to produce a simpler version that to the best of its ability satisfies all present member societies. There is another issue to be kept in mind. One most important caveat has to be heeded: as diverse as the current IFHS membership is in terms of activity, professional interest and development, national interest and availability of resources to manage a federation, it is unlikely that any one structure and constitution can be developed that will satisfy all and sundry to the last minute degree.
COMPROMISE will have to be the watchword! It must be made clear that Australasia respects Benelux views, but remembering its significance and the fact that it was the second largest Branch in the old THS is saddened to see her standing alone on the sideline. We look forward to Benelux hopefully joining us and the other four national societies in a dialogue that will see us all make real progress towards our goal of achieving a united, widespread, international federation, attractive to new member nations and significantly useful in the furtherance and political recognition of the science and profession of Hydrography in its broadest sense.

Guidelines of Good Practice for Hydrographic Surveys in New Zealand Ports & Harbours (GPHSNZPH)
The above titled document, released in draft form in January 2004, is now well into the public consultation and comment process. This document should be read in conjunction with the principles enunciated in the Guide to Good Practice on Port Marine Operations (UK DTLR, March 2000) and Guidelines for Port & Risk Assessment and Safety Management Systems in New Zealand. Two other NZ documents are closely associated with GPHSNZPH, namely their Standards for Hydrographic Surveys (Hyspec) Version V2.0, published 10th January 2000 and (Hyspec) Version 3, published 24th April 2001, in both cases by the National Topographic/Hydrographic Authority. Both Hyspecs deal with the technical minutiae of undertaking hydrographic surveys at a national level, but only Version 3 deals with MBES in detail. The draft GPHSNZPH takes an eminently common-sense approach to Ports & Harbours surveys. It recognises that, due to the limited areas involved, the frequency and repetitive nature of many of the survey operations and the great familiarity of surveying staff with situations and circumstances pertaining to their areas of survey, some aspects of ports and harbours surveys might advisedly be less rigorous than elsewhere. This could also be reflected in the level of education, training and accreditation of some of the surveying staff involved. The philosophy adopted is that the nature of the survey area dictates the frequency and methodology for hydrographic operations relating to it and that these should be determined by risk assessment rather than blanket adoption of a set of rigid criteria, despite the latter being absolutely essential in the broader fields of hydrographic surveying. GPHSNZPH deals with a broad brush the usual matters of equipment operation, checks and calibration, data collection, processing, analysis and rendering and personnel education, training and competence. Emphasis was given to the fact that, whilst much new high-tech equipment can automatically or at the press of a button produce apparently highly accurate results, in most cases such equipment needed to be calibrated and frequently checked by and against almost ‘prehistoric’ methods and equipment. For example the old tidepole is not extinct, despite the existence of a plethora of automatic gauges, telemetry linkage and the ability to obtain tidal heights by kinematic GPS in the vertical dimension; the bar check is still in daily usage, notwithstanding self-calibrating transducers, velocimeters and STD probes. Another aspect was stress on the importance of survey metadata, something to which many Australian ports need to pay more attention. It is hoped that another and fuller report can be made on these Guidelines when the final version is approved and adopted.

Contact
Australasian Hydrographic Society
Att. E.R. Whitmore
4/6 Carrington Street
Wahroonga,
New South Wales 2076
Australia
T: +61 2 94892091
F: +61 2 94892048