Frequently Asked Questions
What is hydrographic surveying?
Hydrographic surveying is the process of measuring and mapping beaches, shorelines and navigable bodies of water. Hydrographic surveying plays an important role in keeping waterways safe and functional for commercial and recreational boaters, and helps coastal communities assess hurricane damage, measure erosion and accretion, and plan for flood events.
Who uses hydrographic surveying?
Local, state and federal governments; ports authorities; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; mining operations; consultants; and private developers all depend on hydrographic surveying to provide accurate, timely information about bodies of water.
What kind of hydrographic equipment do you use?
McKim & Creed’s hydrographic surveying equipment includes:
- Singlebeam (Dual Frequency)
- Multibeam (ES3)
- 2 Dedicated Survey Vessels
- 6 Support Vessels
- RTK GPS (Trimble)
- DGPS
- IMU (TSS DMS-05, DMS-305)
- Velocity Profilers
- GPS Gyro (Hemisphere)
- Specifically engineered and dedicated computer acquisition system
- Toughbook Laptops
- Bar Checks
- Misc. Sampling Devices
How does mobile scanning work with hydrographic surveying?
McKim & Creed’s MoDaC Mobile Data Collection® system can be mounted onto a survey vessel. Hydrographic surveyors can then collect up to 400,000 points per second while traveling at safe maritime speeds. Data collected from mobile scanning and multibeam can be merged to provide 100 percent 3-D data sets of project areas above and below the water surface. Mobile scanning can also be used to collect data for finish floor elevation studies, which enable coastal communities to prepare for possible flood events.
How many miles of coastline does the U.S. have?
According to NOAA, there are nearly 3.5 million square nautical miles of water in the U.S. The Office of Coast Survey evaluates the 500,000 square nautical miles that are considered “navigationally significantly.” Only five percent of the earth’s oceans have been mapped.
