Fugro Pelagos Wins Project of the Year
The Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference Committee honoured Fugro Pelagos, Inc. with the 2005 Project of the Year for their survey in Sitka, Alaska.
In 2004, NOAA contracted Fugro Pelagos to chart 87 km2 of the Sitka region, an intricate area of islands and drying reefs containing a highly irregular shoreline with many rocks, foul areas and kelp. Fugro successfully and economically integrated Airborne LIDAR Bathymetry (ALB) and ship Multi-beam Echo Sounding (MBES) operations to complete the survey, representing NOAA’s first simultaneous deployment of these systems.
Fugro collected topographic and bathymetric LIDAR data and conducted MBES surveys to collect the near shore and deeper offshore data. Navigation safety and scientific information for the Sitka region were significantly enhanced by the high-resolution, 100% coverage of MBES and ALB data over the shoal zones surrounding the numerous islets. Integrating these types of data produced additional information, resulting in the fusion of airborne and acoustic data co-registered with high-resolution digital imagery. The imagery was then used to create an ortho-rectified photomosaic of the survey area, which showed the shorelines, islands and sea surface, greatly enhancing shoreline verification data products. Fugro further incorporated the topographic LIDAR mapping capability, resulting in beach and onshore feature mapping integrated with the bathymetry.
