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Abstract

Towards Automation of Volunteered and Authoritative Bathymetric Data Comparisons for Reputation Analysis
LT Patrick J. Debroisse

Seafloor mapping data are used all over the world for many purposes. Large volumes of high-quality hydrographic data are required to create high-accuracy charts and bathymetric models required by national defense, resource management, shipping, and scientific interest groups, among others. However, across the world, the amount of high-quality data available is limited. Volunteered Bathymetric Information (VBI), otherwise known as crowd sourced bathymetry (CSB), is a relatively untapped data source that could be used in many ways such as filling data gaps and informing future data collection expeditions. Determining the quality of VBI has been historically difficult and time consuming, leading to limited use by hydrographic offices. Despite this, the International Hydrographic Organization continues to collect and store VBI in its Data Centre for Digital Bathymetry (DCDB).

Recent developments in VBI quality assessment have made the regular use of VBI more viable, however data discovery and acquisition is still a time-consuming and error-prone process that must be improved upon before automation is possible. Currently, data discovery is a manual process involving the use of multiple web interfaces to identify and download files of interest for a given study area. In a world of limited staff resources, automating this process will help to increase the speed with which VBI could be incorporated into bathymetric models and decision-making tools.

Herein, the design of an open source, Python-based tool called VBI Compare is described. VBI Compare automates the data discovery and acquisition phase of VBI quality analysis workflows and allows for VBI data reputation calculations to be initiated. As part of the data discovery process, VBI Compare ensures colocation of VBI and authoritative chart data and displays the data collected and processing status to the user in a simple status window.

Further, the functionality of VBI Compare is demonstrated by a case study in the Gulf of Maine, United States using NOAA National Bathymetric Source (NBS) as the source of authoritative data. This case study shows the use of VBI Compare to locate and collect required data, and feed it into CSB reputation calculation tools from csb-python from start to finish. This case study demonstrates the real-world utility of VBI Compare to a hydrographic office for VBI evaluation.

GO-MARIE, Bathymetry for Science, Greenland - 2022
Daniel Leite

A 30-day multibeam bathymetric survey was carried out within the scope of the interdisciplinary, multi-year science program GO-MARIE launched and managed by Ocean Research Project. The bathymetric mapping targeted fjords previously uncharted or with very little known soundings on board SRV MarieTharp, a repurposed 22-meter steel-hulled schooner.

Robust Estimation of Multiple Simultaneous Integration Errors from Underway Multibeam Data
Brandon Maingot

While standard procedures ensuring accurate multi-sensor integration within a multibeam system already exist, operators are still plagued by small periodic systematic residuals in data. The source of these errors has long been recognized as the result of imperfect definitions of offsets, alignments, latencies and sound speed between the sonar and auxiliary sensors. In isolation, and shallow water geometry, any one of these sources is easy to recognize. In the presence of multiple sources, however, the resulting pattern of residuals can confound simple analysis. Gross errors are usually immediately apparent, but small errors such as a few milliseconds of latency or decimeters of lever arm, can be hard to identify. Commonly residuals are the result of a combination of several small errors rather than just one. This presentation will briefly discuss the challenges and methods used to achieve system identification under such heterogeneity.

Field Observations of Momentary Liquefaction
Melissa Marry

Melissa will discuss her research which aims to observe momentary liquefaction in the nearshore environment using a novel pressure profiling instrument.

Sentinel Indicators of the Acoustic Environment in Coastal Gulf of Maine Habitats
Grant Milne

Rapidly changing conditions in the Gulf of Maine could create variation in the underwater acoustic propagation environments of coastal habitats. Knowledge of the propagation environment is essential for quantifying uncertainty in the performance of active remote sensing technologies, as well as for maintaining effective communication for marine life that depend on acoustic communication signals. The use of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) and genetic metabarcoding of seawater samples, separately and combined, provide an opportunity to identify soundscape attributes and genetic signals to serve as sentinel indicators of the propagation environment. A sentinel indicator is a variable that can be measured and monitored that represents a system, process, or key component of the ecosystem that is sensitive to environmental pressures. By identifying sound sources, detecting biota, and predicting substrate composition which contribute to the ambient sound level or attenuation of sound waves, it may be possible to predict the acoustic propagation environment associated with particular coastal habitats. Over the summers of 2021-2022, acoustic recordings and water samples used for metabarcoding were collected along the Maine and New Hampshire coastlines from four different locations each containing a sand, macroalgae, and eelgrass site. These data are currently being analyzed to determine whether a greater amount of variation can be accounted for by the type of habitat or geographic location in which sites are located. The results of this investigation will guide future analyses to identify sentinel indicators of acoustic environments present in coastal Gulf of Maine waters.

Air-Sea Interaction Experiment at SUSTAIN
Shantanu Soumya

Multi-UUV Optical Communication System Design
Igor Vladimirov

Igor’s research topic is focused on development of a multi-UUV subsurface wireless communication system, capable of supporting 3+ unpiloted vehicles. Throughout this presentation he will cover a brief introduction to underwater optical communication systems and what it takes to design and deploy one. Key components will include underwater light propagation, basic circuit design, digital signal processing and communication protocols. Igor will also share a few test results collected over the summer and will discuss major challenges he's faced throughout this project.

Presenter Bio

LT Patrick J. Debroisse
Patrick Debroisse is a NOAA Corps Officer currently stationed at the Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Ocean Engineering focusing on ocean mapping and the use of Volunteered Bathymetric Information for hydrographic products. He earned his THSOA Certified Hydrographer in 2019.

Daniel Leite
Daniel is a Brazilian Oceanographer. Since attaining his master's degree in Environmental Oceanography in August 2015 from the Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil, he has been working in different fields related to ocean mapping, such as bathymetric surveys focused on the development and safety of marine navigation, seafloor installations, habitat mapping, and exploration mapping. Daniel was one of the six students for the Nippon Foundation/GEBCO Training Program (Year 17) at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center (CCOM/JHC) - University of New Hampshire (UNH). He completed the training program in 2021, receiving a postgraduate certificate in Ocean Mapping and a FIG/IHO/ICA Category A certificate. Daniel is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the CCOM/JHC at the UNH, pursuing a master's degree in Earth Sciences – Ocean Mapping under the guidance of Professor John Hughes Clarke.

Brandon Maingot
Brandon is a Ph.D. student in the Ocean Engineering department working under supervision of Dr. John Hughes-Clarke. He graduated with a BSc in Geomatics Engineering from the University of the West Indies in 2015. There, he researched the efficacy of using single-beam versus multibeam sonars for modelling low frequency spatio-temporal subsidence of the Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela, resulting from oil extraction. After coming to UNH in 2015 through the GEBCO program, he entered the Ocean Engineering master’s program and began studying the geometry of sonar signal propagation. His current work focuses on modelling geometric systematic errors in multibeam systems to efficiently calibrate them in spatio-temporally heterogenous seafloor and water column conditions.

Melissa Mary
Melissa Marry is a graduate student at UNH working towards her PhD in Ocean Engineering

Grant Milne
Grant is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Marine Biology program at UNH. He earned his Bs. in Conservation Biology and Ba. in Biology at Thiel College where he conducted research on a fungal pathogen found in amphibian species and on predator avoidance behavior in native and invasive crayfish species. At UNH, Grant’s research under advisors Dr. Jennifer Miksis-Olds (CARE) and Dr. Bonnie Brown (DBS) focuses on how acoustic and genetic monitoring techniques can be integrated to identify indicators of the acoustic environment in coastal marine habitats in the Gulf of Maine. Outside of his own research, Grant volunteers as a research diver for an eelgrass monitoring project in the Great Bay, is a member of the American Fisheries Society UNH chapter, and assists with data collection for green crab and oyster monitoring projects led by other members of the Brown Lab.

Shantanu Soumya
Shantanu Soumya is a Ph.D. student at University of New Hampshire associated with the Ocean Surface Observation Laboratory (OSOL). His research interests are fluid dynamics, turbulence and air-sea interaction physics.

Igor Vladimirov
Igor graduated from the United States Naval Academy in May 2014 with degree in Computer Engineering and commissioned as an Ensign in U.S. Navy Civil Engineering Corps. Over the past 8 years he has completed three deployments to the PACOM and AFRICOM theaters and held various management and leadership positions within Navy’s Seabees and Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC). Igor is a registered Professional Engineer.

Publication Date

9-23-2022

Document Type

Presentation

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