Abstract:
In order to deliver the minimum safety conditions for the passage of
ships towards restricted waters, urgent survey operations are required
whenever one deals with natural disasters, unreliable chart information or
uncharted areas.
A common characteristic of these scenarios is the time pressure
related with the main goal of saving human lives and to deliver, as quickly
as possible, a major logistic support for the rescue operations. Real-life
situations have shown that, despite all the available equipment and
technical developments that have occurred, the response of the ships is still
significantly delayed by the lack of confidence in seabed information.
Following the Haiti earthquake disaster, it took the US Navy’s Hydrographic
teams one week of survey operations before it could allow the expeditious
opening of the port.
In recent years, there has been a huge development in positioning
and surveying technologies. Simultaneously, charts production techniques
and GIS software are easily accessible; they are no longer matters for a
restricted group of specialists. Cost reduction, simplicity and usability of
these systems and related equipment have paved the way to the
involvement of a larger number of users.
Under this circumstance, this project aims to demonstrate that it is
possible to develop the traditional methods, used by non surveyors, to carry
out hydrographic surveys. By maximizing the use of handheld GPS receivers
and of Geographic Information System applications, an evaluation of the
toolkit is carried out along all the stages of the survey work, from the
planning to the chart production.
The restrictions of this toolkit are closely linked with the technical
limitations of equipments, with the fact that onboard staffs are not
surveyors, and finally with the available time.
If the solution is validated, some other applications can be foreseen.
Using the same sensors, it may possible to perform land surveys in support
of the rescue operations. Since all the information is in digital format, one
may expect its easier integration into the onboard navigational systems.
