SonTek Wins Bid for 13 ADP Systems for the Yangtze River Estuary

SonTek and China-ORE announce they have won a bid for procurement of 13 sets of Acoustic Doppler Profilers (ADP) to the Yangtze Estuary Waterway Construction Company Ltd. The Yangtze River estuary hosts one of the busiest transportation ports in the world. It is also well known for its complex hydrology such as high sediment movement and year round deposition of mud and sand. The Yangtze Estuary Construction Company is responsible for the second phase of dredging navigation channels from 8.5 metres to 10 meters. Technical cooperation and research has been ongoing for the past year with the State Key Laboratory for Estuary and Coastal Research (East China Normal University) and the Yangtze Estuary Hydrology Bureau. Initial research has led to a plan to deploy instrumented buoys along 260 kilometers of the Yangtze River. The buoys will be linked by wireless communications providing information 24 hours a day to dredgers, construction engineers and scientists for a three year period. It is the first time ADP technology has been combined with buoys to provide comprehensive information on sediment movement in Chinese waters and will provide much benefit to ocean research in the Yangtze Estuary and the East China Sea. In addition to the 13 ADP’s deployed on the buoys, other sensors involved with the project include SonTek’s PC-ADP, Hydra, and Triton.