An adaptable survey platform for shallow water

Development and natural (climate related) changes are placing an ever increasing pressure on our coasts, shallow marine shelves, estuaries, rivers, harbors and inland water bodies. In Europe these pressures have been recognized 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 in so doing to place obligation on Member States to monitor this for both positive and negative impact. The drive for the design of a high-resolution, adaptable survey system came from a need to meet research requirements for long-term monitoring of the dynamic estuaries on the east coast of the UK where tidal currents are often strong and the weather can often be far from ideal. The primary function for the platform was to record bathymetry with a secondary goal of platform adaptability for acquiring high-resolution sub-bottom seismic and recording water properties.