News and Updates

Hydrographic Surveying Using A Jet Ski

Hydrographic surveying is the science of measuring and describing the physical features of the bottom of a water body, including the depth, shape, and composition of the seabed. The purpose of hydrographic surveying is to provide a detailed understanding of the underwater environ...

Laser Scanning

Recent developments in Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) technology now provide the ability to collect vast amounts of accurate data in situations that may have been impossible or dangerous in the past. MLS systems can now be employed on cars to capture road information at high speed...

Rock Backfilling

Rock Backfilling of two Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) pipe lines. The Task Astute Surveying were requisitioned to compose a procedure to position a 180 foot barge which employed 3 hoppers placing two layers of rock over two gas pipe lines approximately two kilometres in length. ...

Breakwater Surveying

Three survey disciplined merged seamlessly. The Task Astute Surveying was charged with the task of surveying a breakwater and river channel situated on the Mid North Coast of NSW. The Plan The plan was to survey the underwater area with multibeam echo sounder technolog...

Multibeam

Multibeam Echo Sounders | Hydrographic Surveying | MBES Surveyors. Multibeam Echo Sounders (MBES) offer significant advancements in the technology of Hydrographic Surveying, making the applications for these systems virtually endless. MBES surveying is highly specialised an...

Sidescan Sonar

Sidescan Sonar Surveying | Side Scan Sonar Surveyors. Sidescan Sonar is used to locate and visually depict objects lying on the sea bed. It is typically used for search and recovery where the objects may have fallen off vessels, been dumped over the side or even the vessels...

Single Beam

Single Beam Echo Sounder Surveying | Single Beam Echo Sounder Surveyors. There are various scenarios where using a Single Beam Echo Sounder (SBES) either instead of, or in conjunction with, the Multibeam System, can have significant advantages. Single beam is suited to shal...

GNSS

GNSS Surveying | GNSS Surveyors | Global Navigation Satellite System. Astute Surveying uses the latest GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) available. This system offers the benefit of receiving both GPS and GLONASS data combined and with the increasing number of satel...

Sea Grass Mapping

Sea Grass Mapping | Sea Grass Surveyors. Scientists and Environmentalists are very concerned with the health of Seagrasses as they play a vital role in our ecosystem. Using a combination of technologies we are able to not only locate the position of the sea grasses, we can...

Marine Geophysics

Marine Geophysics Surveying | Marine Geophysical Surveyors. It is very important to know what is below the seabed before most projects (particularly construction and dredging) can commence. For example, determining the locations, areas and depths of hard rock could save sign...

Dredging

Dredging Surveyor | Trailer Suction Hopper Dredges | Back Hoe Dredges. Astute surveying has successfully supplied a range of services for several dredging projects in the past. We have extensive experience working with Trailer Suction Hopper Dredges (TSHD), Back Hoe Dredges ...

What is Hydrographic Surveying?

Hydrographic surveying is the scientific determination of what lies beneath the surface of a body of water, be it the ocean, a dam or harbour. It measures all factors, including depth, thermal inclines, topography and composition. Applying the resulting data is often vital for safety and planning reasons. Astute Surveying provides comprehensive hydrographic survey services in Australia.

The Importance and Application of Hydrographic Surveying

Knowing what lies beneath the surface undoubtedly has real safety implications for ships and boats, but it also provides valuable information for other industries. Most civil engineering projects undertaken near or in water can only succeed if accurate knowledge of what lies beneath the surface is available during the planning and design phases.

The construction of roads, bridges and causeways indirectly uses the hydrographic data. For the construction of harbours, piers and channels, the data plays a direct role in assessing the viability of a project. Accurate hydrographic surveying becomes an integral component of ensuring the safety of any water located project.

Hydrographic surveying also provides the necessary information to assess the current condition of structures like dam walls and weirs. This is an important task, especially after severe storms that might compromise the integrity of artificial structures. A hydrographic survey is also undertaken to verify the depth and shape of dams, channels and harbours.

Current Methods of Hydrographic Surveying

Scientific hydrographic surveying is not new, but we have progressed a long way from a sounding line – although this is often still the best go-to method for simplistic and often shallow projects. The advent of electronics and computer processing has replaced all the analogue methods with four essential, high-accuracy hydrographic surveying methods:

• Multibeam Echosounders (MBES): This method emits multiple acoustic waves in a fan shape and uses beamforming to extract directional information. The sonar produces a swathe of depth readings from a single ping, which is immediately analysed by computers. The data can include bathymetry, acoustic backscatter and water column data. This is the most common form of data today. The 3D point clouds produced are used to generate contours and colour gradient models

• Laser Scanning: As the name implies, this method uses lasers to scan what lies beneath the surface accurately. The data is then processed and used to create 3D models of the seabed and vertical structures.

• Digital Single Beam Echo Sounding: We still use traditional single beam methods, however the echo sounders have progressed to allow the capture of the digital echogram. Having this data collected at the time of survey allows the hydrographic surveyor to reprocess the data and make those critical decisions the computer is unable to do. Coupled with an accurate RTK GNSS delivers accurate positioning and compensates for any heave movements on the water.

• Side Scan Sonar: Side Scan Sonars have been traditionally used in conjunction with the single beam echo sounder to deliver a monochrome image of the seabed. This data was analysed for any objects or obstructions that may have been missed by the single beam. Today we still the Side Scan Sonar for object detection and also seabed identification/material properties. The main benefit over the Multibeam is the large seabed coverage and resolution of the images/mosaics.

Contact Astute Surveying

If you find yourself wondering, “what is a hydrographic survey”? - Astute Surveying has the information you need because we do it best and we own our equipment. We regularly work in conjunction with harbour authorities and assist with analysing water supply dams.