DO WE NEED PRE-STORM SURVEYED BATHYMETRY FOR OPERATIONAL EROSION FORECASTING? EVALUATION OF REPRESENTATIVE AND SYNTHETIC BATHYMETRY ALTERNATIVES

Immediate pre-storm bathymetry is a key input required for numerical models used in coastal hazard Early Warning Systems. However, the expense and challenging nature of hydrographic surveying means that the availability of high-quality data is extremely rare. This study evaluates the extent to which synthetic and representative bathymetry alternatives can be used to obtain reliable predictions of storm induced sub-aerial erosion using the XBeach coastal erosion numerical model. Multiple storm events at 2 contrasting sites are modelled using 6 bathymetry scenarios including pre-storm surveyed bathymetries, an average bathymetry, and Dean profiles. The output is analysed to evaluate the skill of XBeach erosion predictions as a function of the bathymetry used.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/bE3aXVXxZqQ

Charting America’s Coast

The career and work of the steamer Robert J. Walker, its first commanding officer (Carlile Pollock Patterson) and nature of hydrographic surveying and creation of nautical charts done from Walker are discussed.

Sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands Seafloor Mapping Investigations Using Legacy Data

This paper demonstrates the richness of data collected for nautical charting and considers ways in which chart data can support scientific research, through a case study of two modern navigation surveys undertaken in the Auckland Islands. While legacy charts have coarser resolution, and may synthesize different epochs together into one final product, we examine how they may be used on their own and to complement more recent hydrographic surveys. We argue that the hydrographic and ancillary data, only a fraction of which appears on the final chart, also has scientific value and that the hydrographic surveying principles applied during data collection are equally relevant for all seabed mapping. While the benefits of full bottom coverage obtained by state of-the-art multibeam surveys are clear, there is much more to be discovered in legacy singlebeam datasets than what is displayed on the nautical chart alone.

Making War upon the Chart

This chapter examines the place of charts and hydrographic surveying in the consolidation of a formal American empire after 1898 and the central place of environmental knowledge in the broader strategic debates concerning American empire in the post war period, 1899-1903. It follows the work of surveying vessels off Cuba and the Philippines, the emerging role of the Hydrographic Office and its leaders, and the strategic debates among officer-students at the United States Naval War College and the Navy’s top leadership in the General Board of the Navy in recognizing and debating the importance of the marine environment generally and the specific strategic features of various harbors and coastlines from the Caribbean to the Western Pacific. The chapter argues that charts, hydrographic surveying, and a larger cartographic discourse were central to the geography of American empire, particularly in projecting American sea power into the Western Pacific and the Caribbean.

Empire of Commerce and Science

This chapter examines the voyage of the United States Exploration Expedition, 1838-1842, focusing specifically on its hydrographic survey of the Fiji Islands in the summer of 1840. The coral reef-infested waters of the Fijis were among the most notorious in the Euro-American maritime world. They had long been ill-charted, and the Fijians themselves were widely rumored to be cannibals. This chapter argues that the American expedition sought to impose order on this dangerous marine environment through its hydrographic surveying, a fidelity to the precision of their methods, and, if necessary, by using the military power of this scientific expedition. Throughout the survey, the Americans’ faith in the precision of their work and the charts that derived from them was continually undermined by the agency of the marine environment and by the Fijian people themselves. Even as the American sought to open this ocean wilderness to expanding American trade in the islands by bringing order not just to the surrounding waters but to the cultural practice of Fijian cannibalism in a wide-ranging survey, they nevertheless had to resort to both science and violence when two American officers were attacked and killed.