In Norway about 80% of the population lives in an area that is within 10km of the coast. Therefore a sustainable management of the coastal zone is important, and good maps are an essential basis to underpin coastal zone management policies.
Based on this the Norwegian Hydrographic Service, together with the Geological Survey and the Institute of Marine Research are executing a pilot project called Marine Base Maps for the Coastal Zone, aiming to map the Norwegian coastal zone better and more efficiently. Airborne bathymetric lidar is one of the main techniques that is being tested.
Installed in an aircraft flying around 400 meter above the water level, the technique is using a green laser, that can penetrate the water to map water depths with high precision. In the area around the coastline this technique is much more efficient and also safer than traditional hydrographic surveying methods, like using a multibeam echosounder. The potential water depth penetration is defined by the power of the laser, the water transparency and the local bottom reflection.
The survey company Terratec is participating in the project by using a very powerful and state of the art bathymetric lidar system. The system, manufactured by Teledyne Optech, is called CZMIL SuperNova and is (amongst others) also used by the US government to map and monitor the coastal zone. Terratec is the first commercial company that is using this advanced sensor. On top of the lidar a high resolution RGB and hyperspectral camera are used to survey. Several useful products can be derived from the data like elevation models of the seafloor, as well as information about underwater bottom types and vegetation in the area. These products can be used as a basis for coastal planning.
The presentation will discuss the bathymetric lidar technique as well as the project results.
Charles de Jongh
Charles de Jongh comes from The Netherlands and has an MSc in cartography & geographical information science from Utrecht University. He worked for many years at the hydrospatial software company CARIS (now Teledyne Geospatial), initially as a hydrographic and GIS consultant and later as account manager with responsibility for clients in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, most of them government hydrographic agencies. He now works for the Norwegian geospatial survey company Terratec, focusing on the provision of global airborne bathymetric lidar services using the CZMIL SuperNova bathymetric lidar sensor.