Hydrographic Surveying from Personal Watercraft

Abstract

A hydrographic surveying system has been designed and tested to acquire nearshore beach profile data. Traditional vessel-mounted echosounder surveying instrumentation was placed in watertight containers and configured for a personal watercraft for measurements of subaqueous nearshore beach profiles. The system is able to withstand the harsh environment of the nearshore and acquire beach profile information across the surf zone. This paper describes the system and results of a comparison in Myrtle Beach, S.C., between surveys collected over a 3-day period by the personal watercraft system and by a similar system mounted aboard a traditional coastal survey vessel. The bathymetric measurements for the personal watercraft-mounted echosounder surveying system display mean repetitive differences of 6 cm.