We Visited for You

This year’s conference of the German Hydrographic Society took place in the north eastern German city of Stralsund from 7-9 June 2004. As Senator Velguth, representing the city«s Mayor, said in his welcome speech, this is an area often referred to as ‘Southern Sweden’ because of its two centuries-long Swedish ruling The venue was certainly unique: the old Johannis-Monastery that celebrates this year its 750th year of existence. And rarely, if ever, hydrographic papers were presented in a lecture room decorated with beautiful mural paintings dating back to the 14th century!

But the presentations, just as the technical exhibition, were anything but historic or old. 14 companies showed latest technology amongst Gothic capitals in the hallways of the Monastery, and the 20 lectures offered a wide range of topics:

• Marine cartography and oceanography: 3presentations impressively illustrated the scientific use of modern bathymetry to interpret the complex geology where tectonic plates meet.
  
• Maritime safety and security: 3 papers addressed topics ranging from the use of AIS in VTS on ECDIS to the internationally harmonised hydrographic surveying programme in the Baltic Sea and to hydrographic issues of marine security.
  
• Bathymetry and GIS: a new multibeam echo sounding system was introduced, and another paper presented the new GIS developed for the harbour of Hamburg
  
• Use of hydrographic data: one paper presented the morphologic analysis of 62 years of hydrographic surveys of the Jade area, and another paper showed how kinematic positioning techniques can be used to examine the habitats of whales in the Baltic Sea; one paper presented experimental results of nonlinear acoustics for the classification of sediments and underwater constructions
  
• Hydrology: papers dealt with a hydrologic information system, an information system for coastal currents and the influence of macroturbulence on surface radar signatures of marine sand waves
  
• Marine geodesy: papers dealt with five years experiences with high accuracy real-time kinematic positioning in the Wadden Sea, planned changes in horizontal and vertical geodetic reference in Germany, and finally new Batchelor and Master curricula at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences were presented.

The social programme was equally attractive. The ice-breaker party took it literal: it was nicely arranged on a recently decommissioned real ice breaker in Stralsund harbour. Incidentally, close to the ice breaker a 8.3 m whale was dissected who was stranded few days before, providing an unexpected prelude to a paper presented a day later. And the traditional party the next evening took place on two traditional sailing boats which took the guests in good weather into the sunny waters of the Greifswalder Bodden east of Stralsund. More than 80 participants attended the Conference, mostly from Germany, but some also from neighbouring countries, most notably from Austria. The next German Hydrographic Days are planned for June 2004 in Wilhelmshaven.