The document discusses the Base-Platform project, which aims to produce bathymetric data by combining various satellite and crowd-sourced methods. Bathymetry is crucial for numerous applications such as navigation, construction, and environmental management, as a significant portion of the ocean floor remains unsurveyed. The project offers accessible data through a web portal, providing users with 'good enough' solutions that are more cost-effective than traditional survey methods while still being precise enough for many applications.

1. The BASE-Platform service:
Producing bathymetry from combined
satellite and crowd sourced data
S. Wiehle, M. Verlaan, K. Hartmann, S. Lewis, P. Gallés, D.
Schaap and T. Thornton

2. 1. What is Bathymetry?
2. Available Bathymetry data
3. About the BASE-Platform project
4. BASE-Platform products and services
5. BASE-Platform trial areas
6. Where to find the products?
7. Q&A
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Topics

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Questions and Answers

4. • Bathymetry is the study of the depths and shapes of underwater terrain
• Hydrography is the measurement of those depths, as well as tides, currents etc.
• 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water
• Over 85% of the world ocean floor remains unsurveyed to modern standards
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Figure 1. Example of bathymetry map: ETOPO1 Global Relief Model. Source: NOAA
1. What is Bathymetry?

5. • Extended areas are not mapped to sufficient accuracy, or existing data is out of date.
• Bathymetry is essential for various user groups and for multiple applications.
Figure 3. Some examples of bathymetry applications (construction, coastal risk management, tourism, navigation, fishery, port and harbours,
oil and gas, offshore wind farms, submarine cables, dredging industry, research community). Sources: Maritime journal, BBV, Coolantartica,
Nature, Port de Barcelona, Smarttech, sungreenengineering.
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1. Bathymetry applications

6. Figure 4. Ship surveying the seafloor. Source: POA(Phot) Ray Jones/MOD
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2. Established hydrographic survey methods
• Most water
depths: Survey
vessels with
echo sounders
• Optically
shallow
waters: LIDAR
on planes
• Good
resolution and
accuracy
• High cost

7. • GEBCO
– Free to use
– Survey data and interpolation
– Available worldwide
– ~900m resolution
• EMODnet
– Free to use
– Survey data and GEBCO for gaps
– Limited to European waters
– ~230m resolution
• NOAA NGDC – EMODnet for the USA
• National Hydrographic Offices
– Survey data or nautical charts – shoal bias
– Formats generally geared to navigation
– May restrict access and/or charge
• Commercial Providers, e.g. FindMaps!
– Acquire data from multiple sources
– Provided in GIS friendly formats
– Often the best quality, highest resolution and
most up to date source
Figure 5. Screenshot: www.gebco.net/
Figure 6. Screenshot: www.emodnet-bathymetry.eu/
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2. Available bathymetry data

8. • BASE-platform is a 2 year EU supported H2020
project, finishing November 2017
• Offers bathymetry to end users on a web portal
• Bathymetric data combining:
- Optical Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB)
- SAR SDB
- Altimetry SDB
- Crowd-sourced bathymetry (CSB)
- Water level modelling
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Website: http://www.base-platform.com
Partners:
3. What is the BASE-Platform project?

9. “Good enough” data for many applications
- Better than free sources like EMODnet and GEBCO
- Significantly cheaper than commissioning a survey
vessel or Lidar, if not as accurate
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Website: http://www.base-platform.com
3. What is the BASE-Platform project?

10. Figure 7. Concept of the BASE-platform. Left: Synergy of the different methods to retrieve bathymetric data by combining
different EO based methods. Right: Concept of data flows and interaction. Source: BASE-platform.
• Data from different techniques (optical, SAR and altimetric SDB and CSB) are
combined, each having complementary characteristics and depth ranges
• All corrected for tides and reduces to a common vertical datum
• Data from the EU funding period made available as open data
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

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Strengths
Applications
- Fast turnaround – can often use existing imagery
- No need to deploy a survey vessel
- Cost and time saving
- No risk to vessel or crew in hazardous areas
- No bad weather downtime
- Cost effective solution
- Altimetry SDB is the only large area solution for deep waters
- Other techniques cover coastal waters
- Ideal for remote areas that other methods cannot easily reach
- Surveying areas that are not critical for navigation of shipping
- Pre-survey tool for multi-beam survey of critical areas
4. What can satellites offer?

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Strengths
Applications
- Easy acquisition of data where vessels go
- About 10 million seagoing vessels globally, so room to grow!
- Low cost solution, not dependent on expensive technology
- Continuous resurveying, so easy to detect changes with time
- Community engagement and raised awareness of marine
environment
4. And the crowd?
- Depths up to 100m for small craft, 2000m for ships
- Surveying areas that are not critical for navigation of shipping
- Pre-survey tool for multi-beam survey of critical areas
- Monitoring silting and erosion in channels, ports and harbours
- Ground truth data for satellite and Lidar based bathymetry

13. - Using Sentinel-2, WorldView-2/3 and Landsat 8 satellite images
- Uses the colour shift of light going through the water
- Depths 0 - 30m depth
- Spatial resolution 2 - 15m, depending on imagery used
- Vertical accuracy: 0.5 m ± 10% depth CE90
- Time resolution: on demand
Figure 8. Example of EOMAPs satellite derived bathymetry product. Source: BASE-platform.
Optical
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

14. - Using TerraSAR-X and Sentinel-1 satellites
- Based on measuring wave length
- Depths 10 – 70m
- Spatial resolution: ~ 100 m
- Vertical accuracy: < 5 m
- Time resolution: on demand
Figure 9. Example of SAR bathymetry. Source: DLR
.
SAR
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

15. - Using CryoSat-2, Jason-1 and Sentinel-3A satellite images
- Based on changes in gravity affecting sea surface level
- Depths > 2000m, >10km from land
- Spatial resolution: 1km
- Vertical accuracy: 100 m
- Time resolution: annually
Figure 10. Example of isardSAT satellite derived bathymetry product based on CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 for the Mauritius
Islands. Source: isardSAT.
Altimetry
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

16. - Recruit vessels to log position and depth whenever at sea
- Raw tracks uploaded for processing in the cloud
- Depths 1 – 100m (small craft), 10 - 2000m (ships)
- Spatial resolution: typically 32m
- Vertical accuracy 0.2 – 0.8m -> 2.5% of depth with enough data
- Time resolution: daily updates
Figure 11. Example of CSB. Source: Smartcom Software
CSB
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

17. - Apply corrections for tidal elevation to total water depth
- Global hydrodynamic model
- Spatial resolution: 5km gridded data
- Vertical accuracy: 7cm in deep water, 15cm on shelf
- Time resolution: 10 minutes
Sealevel
modelling
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Figure 13. Computational grid of the hydrodynamic model. Source: BASE-platform.
4. BASE-Platform products and services

18. - Apply corrections for tidal elevation to total water depth
- Global hydrodynamic model
- Spatial resolution: 5km gridded data
- Vertical accuracy: 7cm in deep water, 15cm on shelf
- Time resolution: 10 minutes
Sealevel
modelling
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

19. - Bathymetry traditionally relative to Chart Datum /
Lowest Astronomical Tide
- Conversion possible to Mean Sea Level, Ellipsoid or
Geoid
Vertical
reference
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Figure 14. Lowest Astronomical Tide relative to Mean Sea Level. Source: BASE-platform.
4. BASE-Platform products and services

20. - Combination of the products obtained from each method
- Spatial resolution: depending on source data
- Vertical accuracy: depending on the source data
- Time resolution: on demand
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4. BASE-Platform products and services
Merged
bathymetry
Optical

21. - Combination of the products obtained from each method
- Spatial resolution: depending on source data
- Vertical accuracy: depending on the source data
- Time resolution: on demand
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4. BASE-Platform products and services
Merged
bathymetry
Altimetry

22. - Combination of the products obtained from each method
- Spatial resolution: depending on source data
- Vertical accuracy: depending on the source data
- Time resolution: on demand
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4. BASE-Platform products and services
Merged
bathymetry
SAR

23. - Combination of the products obtained from each method
- Spatial resolution: depending on source data
- Vertical accuracy: depending on the source data
- Time resolution: on demand
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4. BASE-Platform products and services
Merged
bathymetry
CSB

24. - Combination of the products obtained from each method
- Spatial resolution: depending on source data
- Vertical accuracy: depending on the source data
- Time resolution: on demand
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4. BASE-Platform products and services
Merged
bathymetry
Combined

25. - Making it easy to access bathymetric data
- Simple selection of your area of interest
- Instant purchase and download of off the shelf data sets
- Ordering of data sets produced on demand
- Trial area data free until November 2017
Data portal
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

26. - Making it easy to access bathymetric data
- Simple selection of your area of interest
- Instant purchase and download of off the shelf data sets
- Ordering of data sets produced on demand
- Charging only starts after end of EU project (Nov. 2017)
Data portal
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

27. - Making it easy to access bathymetric data
- Simple selection of your area of interest
- Instant purchase and download of off the shelf data sets
- Ordering of data sets produced on demand
- Charging only starts after end of EU project (Nov. 2017)
Data portal
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

28. - Making it easy to access bathymetric data
- Simple selection of your area of interest
- Instant purchase and download of off the shelf data sets
- Ordering of data sets produced on demand
- Charging only starts after end of EU project (Nov. 2017)
Data portal
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4. BASE-Platform products and services

29. • Test areas for the various technologies in the project
• Validate results against any existing survey data in the area
• Demonstrate capabilities to partners in each area, and to the
wider bathymetric community
• 4 trial areas in 2016
• Potentially additional areas in 2017
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5. BASE-Platform trial areas

30. • Balearic
Islands
• Channel
Islands
• Mauritius
Islands
• Wadden
Sea
Figure 13. Screenshot. Grey: only GEBCO data. Source: EMODnet-bathymetry.eu
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5. BASE-Platform trial areas

31. • Balearic
Islands
• Channel
Islands
• Mauritius
Islands
• Wadden
Sea
Figure 14. Screenshot. Grey: only GEBCO data. Source: EMODnet-bathymetry.eu.
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5. BASE-Platform trial areas

32. • Balearic
Islands
• Channel
Islands
• Mauritius
Islands
• Wadden
Sea
Figure 15. Optical bathymetry of Mauritius. Source: BASE-platform.
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5. BASE-Platform trial areas

33. • Balearic
Islands
• Channel
Islands
• Mauritius
Islands
• Wadden
Sea
Figure 16. Elbe estuary: High tide and low tide. Source: BASE-platform.
TerraSAR-X 20141119T170200 TerraSAR-X 20150821T170203
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5. BASE-Platform trial areas

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Figure 17. Screenshot of the data portal. Source: BASE-platform.
www.base-platform.com
6. Where to find the products?
Now
• Download data for each trial area
from each data provider
• All data provided under CC Open
Data licence
Coming soon…
Data access portal
• Offers off the shelf data and
possibility to order data
• User parameters
- Area
- Dataset
- Resolution
- File format

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We want to learn how we can best meet your needs
Please identify yourself and your organisation when asking a question
If you cannot use the chat tool, or have any thoughts afterwards,
email maite.munoz@isardsat.cat
For those interested in what we are doing, we would like to follow up with you
in detail after the workshop
If you haven’t already done so, please spend a few minutes completing our
questionnaire at:
http://www.base-platform.com/Data/User-Requirements-Questionnaire
We will be at the events below – please come and see us:
- Ocean Business - IHO Assembly
- MCA CHAS Seminar - Regional workshops
Questions and Answers