Extended Operational and Trade Vocabulary

Hydrographic Offices, Survey Vessels and Marine Cartography glossary (page 2)

Vocabulary of hydrography and nautical charting: acoustic Doppler current profilers and bottom-track modes, UKHO ADMIRALTY chart series, distance tables and digital products like e-Navigator and EasyTide, survey-vessel instrumentation, and the national hydrographic offices and cartographic standards behind chart production and updating by Notices to Mariners.

344 defined terms.

Showing 94 on this page (page 2 of 2).

R

RBINS: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, operator of RV Belgica.
Reference Receiver (GNSS): Static GNSS receiver providing differential corrections to a roving survey antenna, supporting RTK and PPK methods.
Refraction Editor: Post-processing tool that adjusts beam paths using improved sound velocity profiles to correct refraction artifacts in multibeam data.
Regional Hydrographic Commission (RHC): Geographic grouping of IHO member states coordinating regional charting priorities; examples include the Baltic Sea Hydrographic Commission and the East Asia Hydrographic Commission.
Reson SeaBat 7125: Teledyne Reson multibeam echo sounder.
Reson SeaBat 7160: Teledyne Reson high-power multibeam echo sounder for deep water bathymetry.
Reson SeaBat F50: Compact Teledyne multibeam in the modern T-series lineage.
Reson SeaBat T20-P: Teledyne Reson portable multibeam used on smaller survey craft.
Reson SeaBat T50-R: Teledyne Reson multibeam optimized for harbor survey and inspection.
ROV-Mounted MBES: Multibeam mounted on a remotely operated vehicle for close-range high-resolution mapping of subsea infrastructure.
RTK (Real-Time Kinematic): GNSS positioning technique delivering centimeter-level horizontal and vertical accuracy in real time, used for GNSS-tide survey workflows.
RV Atair: BSH research vessel operated for German hydrographic and oceanographic missions in the North Sea and Baltic.
RV Belgica II: Belgian research vessel commissioned in 2021, replacing the 1984 Belgica for hydrographic and oceanographic operations.
RV Investigator: CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel built in 2014 by Sembawang Shipyard, fitted with EM 122 and EM 710 multibeam echosounders.
RV Komet: BSH wreck-search and hydrographic survey vessel operating in German waters.
RV Meteor: German research vessel operated by the University of Hamburg under contract to BMBF.
RV Wega: BSH hydrographic survey vessel.

S

Saildrone Surveyor: Twenty-two meter Saildrone USV with full ocean depth multibeam echo sounder.
Sailing Directions (Pilots): Textual descriptions of coastal navigation issued by hydrographic offices, complementing chart symbology with prose detail.
Sample Cast: Oceanographic measurement designed to support a specific area's sound velocity correction.
Satellite-Derived Bathymetry (SDB): Estimation of shallow water depths from multispectral satellite imagery, used to extend hydrographic coverage in remote areas.
SBE 19plus V2 SeaCAT: Profiling CTD from Sea-Bird used for sound velocity profile collection on survey launches.
SBE 911plus: Sea-Bird Scientific high-accuracy laboratory-grade CTD widely used on research and survey vessels.
Sea-Bird Scientific: US oceanographic instrument manufacturer headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, producing CTD, microcat, and dissolved oxygen sensors.
Seabed 2030: Nippon Foundation-GEBCO initiative to map the entire seafloor by 2030.
Seabed Mapping International Coordination Mechanism: Forum bringing together GEBCO regional centers to coordinate seabed mapping campaigns.
Service Hydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine (SHOM): French hydrographic service headquartered at 13 rue du Chatellier, Brest, operating since 1971 in its current form and tracing roots to the Depot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine of 1720.
SHOM Antares: SHOM coastal hydrographic survey vessel.
SHOM Borda: SHOM coastal hydrographic survey vessel deployed in French waters.
SHOM Laperouse: SHOM coastal hydrographic survey ship.
SIS (Seafloor Information System): Kongsberg multibeam acquisition software historically used for EM-series sonars, succeeded by K-Controller.
Site Survey: A pre-installation inspection of an offshore field location covering bathymetry, geotechnics, and existing infrastructure.
SOLAS Carriage Requirement: SOLAS Chapter V regulation 19 requirement for nautical charts and nautical publications, met by paper or ECDIS-with-ENC.
SonarWiz: Chesapeake Technology software for processing side-scan and sub-bottom data, widely used in the offshore industry.
Sound Velocity Profiler (SVP): Instrument that measures sound speed through the water column, used to correct multibeam beam refraction.
Sounding Datum: Vertical reference to which observed depths are reduced, typically chart datum at the survey location.
Sounding Density: Number of unique soundings per unit area, an IHO S-44 metric for coverage adequacy.
South Atlantic Hydrographic Commission (SAIHC): IHO regional hydrographic commission covering coastal states of Africa's southern Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts.
Special Order Survey: Highest IHO S-44 accuracy category, with total vertical uncertainty under 0.25 meters and 100 percent feature detection, for fairways with minimum under-keel clearance.
Squat Correction: Adjustment for vessel sinkage at survey speed, applied during dynamic draft processing.
State of Hydrographic Surveying (C-55): IHO publication tracking the percentage of world waters surveyed to modern standards.
Survey Density: Spacing of survey lines used to design a hydrographic operation to meet IHO order requirements.
Survey Order (IHO S-44): Specification level governing accuracy, resolution, and feature detection for a hydrographic survey area.
Survey Plan: Document defining geographic limits, scale, line spacing, sensor configuration, and metadata requirements for a hydrographic project.
SVP Sound Speed Sensor: Direct time-of-flight sound speed sensor such as AML SV Xchange or Valeport miniSVS, mounted at the sonar head for surface velocity input.

T

TEAMSurv: Crowdsourced bathymetry initiative collecting depth data from voluntary observing ships, contributing to IHO crowdsourced bathymetry programmes.
Teledyne BlueView: 2D imaging sonar product line acquired by Teledyne, used on ROVs for navigation and inspection.
Teledyne CARIS: Geomatics software business unit of Teledyne Marine, headquartered in Fredericton, Canada, producer of HIPS and SIPS, Bathy DataBASE, and S-57 Composer.
Teledyne Optech CZMIL: Bathymetric lidar system from Teledyne Optech delivering simultaneous topographic and bathymetric mapping.
Teledyne RDI Ocean Surveyor: Long-range ADCP series at 38 and 75 kilohertz designed for hull-mounted use on oceanographic vessels.
Teledyne RDI Pinnacle: Newer ADCP family from Teledyne RDI offering broadband phased-array architecture.
Teledyne RDI Workhorse: Family of acoustic Doppler current profilers from Teledyne RD Instruments operating at 300, 600, and 1200 kilohertz.
Teledyne Reson: Teledyne Marine business segment covering the SeaBat multibeam echo sounder family.
TIDE Forecasting: Generation of tidal predictions for ports using harmonic analysis of historical tide gauge records.
Tide gauge: Instrument recording sea-surface elevation.
Tide Reduction: Subtraction of observed or predicted tide from observed depth to obtain chart-datum depth.
TPU (Total Propagated Uncertainty): Combined uncertainty of a hydrographic sounding from positioning, motion, sound velocity, tide, and sonar contributions, used in CUBE and S-101 quality reporting.
Track Spacing: Distance between parallel tracks in a search pattern.

U

UKHO Bathymetric Data Portal: UKHO platform sharing publicly releasable bathymetric datasets in support of MSDI and Seabed 2030.
UKHO Data Quality Assessment Standard (DQA): Internal UKHO methodology for evaluating third-party survey data prior to ingest into the National Marine Bathymetry Database.
UKHO INSPIRE Portal: UKHO service exposing marine spatial data products compliant with the EU INSPIRE Directive.
UKHO Taunton: United Kingdom Hydrographic Office headquarters at Admiralty Way, Taunton, Somerset, established in 1795 and producing the ADMIRALTY chart and publication portfolio.
Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV): Autonomous surface vessel for observation.
Underway Survey: Survey conducted while a vessel transits at moderate speed, using hull-mounted multibeam to map seabed along passage routes.
USBL (Ultra Short Baseline): Acoustic positioning method that locates a transponder relative to a transducer array on the survey vessel, exemplified by Kongsberg HiPAP and Sonardyne Ranger.
USCG ATON Survey: US Coast Guard surveys of aids to navigation positions, fed back to NOAA for chart compilation.

V

Valeport Bathy2 Echosounder: Single-beam echosounder from Valeport used for harbor and routine soundings.
Valeport miniSVP: Portable sound velocity profiler from Valeport widely used for water-column sound speed casts.
Valeport miniSVS: Compact sound velocity sensor from Valeport mounted at the multibeam sonar head for surface speed of sound input.
Valeport SWiFT CTD: Profiling CTD from Valeport designed for rapid deployment from survey launches.
Valeport TideMaster: Self-recording tide gauge from Valeport used for hydrographic tide reductions.
VDatum: NOAA software providing transformations among approximately 36 vertical datums in US waters, key to consolidating survey data with shoreline products.
Vector Chart: Layered digital chart used in ECDIS.
Vertical Datum: Reference surface for elevations or depths.
Vessel Reference Frame: Right-handed coordinate system fixed to a survey vessel with X forward, Y starboard, Z down, used to express sensor offsets.

W

WASSP F3X: WASSP forward-looking multibeam used in coastal mapping and fisheries.
WASSP S3: New Zealand-designed multibeam echosounder from WASSP Ltd operating at 160 kilohertz, used on small commercial and fisheries craft.
WASSP W3: WASSP wideband multibeam designed for shallow harbor surveys.
Water Column Imaging (WCI): Multibeam mode capturing acoustic returns from the water column, used to detect mid-water targets, gas seeps, and fish.
Water Level Information (S-104): S-100-based product specification supporting time-varying water level surfaces for ECDIS overlay and under-keel clearance services.
WEND-100: IHO Worldwide ENC Database principles refreshed under the S-100 era to maintain coordination of ENC production and avoid coverage overlaps.
WGS84: World Geodetic System 1984, the reference frame for marine GNSS positioning and the geodetic basis of nearly all modern ENCs.
Wire-Drag Survey: Historic technique using a wire suspended between two vessels at a set depth to verify minimum clear depths over an area, now largely replaced by full-coverage multibeam.
Workboat Survey: Hydrographic survey conducted from a small workboat in protected waters, typically with a shallow-water multibeam and integrated INS.
World Magnetic Model (WMM): Joint NGA and BGS magnetic field model updated every five years, used for compass variation on ENCs and paper charts.

X

X-Band Radar Wave Imaging: Use of marine X-band radar returns to estimate sea state and surface currents, complementing hydrographic surveys.
XBT (Expendable Bathythermograph): Single-use probe measuring temperature versus depth, sometimes used with a fixed salinity profile to estimate sound speed.
XSV (Expendable Sound Velocity Probe): Single-use probe measuring sound velocity directly versus depth, used on ships of opportunity to support multibeam corrections.

Y

Yo-Yo CTD: Repeated up-and-down CTD profiling at a station, used to characterize sound velocity variability during multibeam survey.
YSI EXO: Multi-parameter water quality sonde from Xylem-YSI used in environmental work adjacent to hydrographic survey.

Z

Z-Boat 1800: Compact remote-controlled hydrographic survey vessel from Teledyne Oceanscience, popular for inland water and shallow harbor surveys.
Zero Crossing Bottom Detector: Bottom-detection algorithm in single-beam echosounders that picks the first significant return for depth estimation.
Zone of Confidence (ZOC): Chart quality indicator (A1, A2, B, C, D, U) per IHO S-67 used on ENCs.
ZUPT (Zero-Velocity Update): Inertial-aiding technique in which a stationary survey vehicle provides a zero-velocity observation to bound INS drift, used in subsea LBL and ROV navigation.