Very Shallow-water Bathymetry

The River Murray Operations Unit (RMOU) of the South Australian Water Corporation surveys very shallow waters, a type of surveying that has its own specific problems overcome by non-conventional solutions. This article was submitted by a surveyor from the above survey unit. I attended the Shallow Water Survey conference in Sydney in 2003 because that is what I was doing: shallow-water bathymetry - in fact, I was even doing it out of the water. To my surprise, shallow water seemed to be considered as something at about the 10 metre mark or a bit less; 10 metres, to me, was... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

Current Profiler Shallow Water

OSIL has recently supplied several SonTek Argonaut-XR (Extended Range) Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers for use in projects where shallow-water current monitoring is required. The Argonaut XR is specifically designed for mounting on the bottom of a river, channel, port or near-shore in less than 40m depth of water. It has a multi-cell current profiling feature that includes special mode which automatically adjusts one of the measurement cells for changing water-level. This means that the Argonaut-XR can adjust measurement volume height to report depth-averaged velocity over the entire water column, or over a user-programmable range (even with tide variation). The Argonaut... (read more)

2005-12-08 12:00:00

Shallow Water Current Measurements

Application of a towed ADP system

Since the management of coastal areas came to the attention of marine science, much effort has been expended in applying originally ‘blue water’ measurement technologies to typical scientific problems in a shallow water environment. For hydrographic investigations in a large but shallow area of the Baltic Sea, a towed current meter system was designed and tested which minimises the limitations of standard vessel mounted ADP application in shallow water conditions. The new system was successfully operated during several cruises in the Baltic Sea. It provides accurate current data in the near surface layer, normally disturbed by the ship induced wave... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

Shallow-water Survey in Canada

The St. Lawrence River channel operations

Canada is the second largest country in the world, with a shoreline measuring approximately 243,800km, more than six times the circumference of the Earth. The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS), established in 1883, is divided into four regions better to serve this immense territory. Shallow-water surveys take place in all four regions; however, one of these has the most intense operations: the St. Lawrence channel in the Québec Region. The Canadian Hydrographic Service based at Maurice Lamontagne Institute, in collaboration with the Canadian Coast Guard, is working to improve the efficiency and accuracy of these shallow-water survey operations. This paper presents... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

Cable Tracking in Shallow Water

Tailoring Systems for Inshore Operations

Whilst there has been an increased effort to resolve the issues of supporting deepwater construction operations, issues specific to shallow-water operations seem to have been largely overlooked, the attitude being that standard equipment packages would be perfectly adequate. What makes this all the more surprising is that the majority of offshore developments have some sort of shallow-water requirement associated with beach landing points. As always, the other factor driving all developments is cost. Whilst the high price of oil has produced a boom in oil-construction support, the laws of supply and demand have increased vessel and service provision rates to... (read more)

2007-05-31 12:00:00

New Profiling Instrument for Shallow Water

AML Oceanographic, Canada, is introducing a new profiling instrument at Ocean Business 2013. The Base•X is an entry-level shallow water logging instrument which offers performance at an attractive price. Designed for profiling in coastal waters, the instrument includes a shackle, a sensor cage, and an LED status indicator to simplify deployment preparation. High-speed 25Hz sampling ensures data resolution. Like all other X•Series instruments, the Base•X uses XchangeTM field-swappable sensors. The Base•X is available for use with conductivity, sound velocity, temperature, pressure, and turbidity XchangeTM sensors. This means that sensor heads can be shared with other instruments, regardless of instrument size or type. ... (read more)

2013-04-10 03:20:39

Software Solution for Shallow Water Surveys

The EIVA NaviSuite software suite now includes a single-user sensor data acquisition and processing bundle for shallow water surveys, NaviSuite Kuda. The products and solutions presented at the Shallow Survey 2015 international conference, which is taking place from 14-18 September at Plymouth University, UK, include EIVA’s NaviSuite Kuda, which was launched on 10 September. NaviSuite Kuda is a single-user bundle dedicated to shallow water surveys. Its price matches the budget of small companies, while allowing them to benefit from the advanced features of the NaviSuite software solutions relevant to this type of operation by offering all the necessary tools to... (read more)

2015-09-11 09:16:00

Shallow Water Bathymetry for South China Sea

EOMAP Asia Pacific has launched a detailed dataset for the islands in the South China Sea, generated by satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) techniques. The islands of the South China Sea are several hundred kilometres away from the nearest coast and are surrounded by water deeper than 1,000m, which is assumed to hold extensive oil and gas reserves. The area is a disputed territory of several countries within the Asian region. Data about the underwater topography is outdated or not accessible. Instead of relying on acoustic or airborne methods to map the over 250 islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs and sandbanks, EOMAP... (read more)

2015-06-16 11:05:40

An Adaptable Survey Platform for Shallow Water

Bathymetric Charting of Nearshore, Harbour, Estuary and River Settings

High-resolution bathymetry and water quality surveys of shallow shelf and inland water bodies are an increasingly necessary part of environmental management with climate change pressures. This paper describes a new method for data acquisition using a small, stable, adaptable, single-operator survey platform. Development and natural (climate related) changes are placing an ever increasing pressure on our coasts, shallow marine shelves, estuaries, rivers, harbours and inland water bodies. In Europe these pressures have been recognised and attempts made to address the impacts under legislation such as the Water Framework Directive, which seeks to classify all water bodies by their health and... (read more)

2013-01-18 01:45:32

Multispectral Lidar Solution for Shallow-water Surveys

Leica Geosystems and Airborne Hydrography AB have presented Chiroptera II, a Lidar solution for topographic mapping and shallow-water surveying in depths of up to 15 metres. The system simultaneously captures the full waveform in both the 35kHz bathymetric channel and the 500kHz topographic channel to provide high-detail maps for environmental and coastal monitoring, infrastructure planning, and other near-shore applications. The latest version incorporates the Leica RCD30 80-megapixel medium-format camera, NovAtel SPAN GNSS-IMU subsystem, Leica MissionPro mission planning software and Leica FlightPro flight navigation software. It also features a new scanner package that allows installation in the Leica PAV100 stabilised mount,... (read more)

2014-02-25 03:58:23