Surveying Shallow Water Habitats and Bathymetry in the Baltic Sea

Coastal areas are some of the most biodiverse environments in the world, and are constantly changing. Therefore, mapping projects for this near-shore area are extremely important. Many mapping procedures include optical methods, such as satellite imagery or underwater video, which is limited in effectiveness by cloud cover or water clarity. Other instruments, such as boat and autonomous underwater vehicle mounted sonar are limited by the vehicle’s maneuverability in very shallow waters or environments with many obstacles. A proposed solution to these limitations is an autonomous hovercraft, which can fly seamlessly from water to land, and begin collecting sonar data in waters as shallow as 10 cm. While the hovercraft was built and tested in Nova Scotia, I hope to expand this project to Germany and use this platform to map eelgrass. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

David Barclay

Student:

Partner:

Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Education

University:

Dalhousie University

Program: