Hydrographic Survey of the Territorial Water of Dubai

Importance of Hydrographic Data

• Maritime commerce is one of the main elements of the United Arab Emirates nation's economy. Dubai is the central Hub in the Middle East for Maritime business

• Modern nautical charts were required for the country's waters for navigational safety purposes and along the coast while approaching the ports.

• Boost the development of maritime trade in the waters and ports of the country.

• Performing engineering works and marine development.

• Environmental changes and models development

• Public data sharing for Municipality affairs.

Dubai Municipality hydrographic infrastructure

• Throughout the long history of maritime trading, more than 80% of international trade is carried by sea. DM is responsible for owning, operating, maintaining, managing and developing the Dubai territorial waters zones and creeks.

• The conduct of Bathymetric survey for the areas of Dubai territorial waters and creeks aim to serve the following purposes:

– Precise bathymetric survey of full sea floor coverage.

– Establishing a platform and workflow by exchanging of marine data and information

– Feature detections to produce nautical charts for safe and efficient navigation of ships.

– Consideration for planning of future projects for coastal area development

– Support strategic planning of development of Dubai maritime zones

– Initiating environmental corrective measures in case of significant impacts or non-compliance with the applicable limits.

– Obtaining the accurate positions of all navigational aids within the whole surveyed area.

• All the bathymetric surveys are done according to IHO Standards for Hydrographic Surveys (S-44), 5th edition of February 2008, specifically IHO Special Order and full seafloor search with maximum detection capability for MBES.

•

Project Scope : Special Order Survey of Area 1 + Dubai Creek

• Survey of Area 1 and Dubai Creek

with below basic specification to

“Special Order” and to produce

nautical charts:

• Multibeam survey with 100%

coverage

• Single beam echo sounder survey

• Geophysical survey using side scan

sonar and sub bottom profiler

• Magnetometer survey

• Seabed grab sampling

Project Methodology

• Following Dubai Government's initiative to transform Dubai into the world’s smartest and happiest city and deliver world-class smart services, we had proposed “Smart and Innovative” to conduct the Hydrographic Survey of Dubai in a manner.

• Conducted the Hydrographic Survey through building of capacity within the Dubai Municipality – Survey Department

• The Hydrographic Survey project was conducted in a phase wise manner, leading to building up of capabilities with the department in terms of surveying platforms, survey equipment’s and trained personnel.

Project Methodology

• Marine Spatial Database management

• Undertaken an integrated approach to all operations. The methods in bathymetric

surveys of the whole area were as follows:

• Bathymetric surveys using Multi Beam Echo sounder according to IHO Standards for

Hydrographic Surveys (S-44), 5th edition.

• Bathymetric survey using Single beam Echo sounder for data quality control (cross

check).

• Multibeam survey for the whole area were conducted at various depth-dependent line

spacing considering an overlap of 20% - 30%.

Project Methodology

• Sub-bottom profiles, grab sampling, magneto-meter survey were conducted to specific areas of interest.

• Tides were recorded using acoustic or pressurized tide gauge for the duration of the survey. A tidal reading was recorded every 10 minutes.

• All tidal measurements were downloaded, analyzed, processed to reduce all soundings to the Chart Datum referred to Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT).

Labs

Vessel and Equipment Details

The survey equipment package on the 15 m vessel as below:

15m mono hull customized survey vessel fully Hydrographic equipped

• Multibeam Echo Sounder System with sidescan sonar system : Edgetech 6205

• Single Beam Echo Sounder System : SyQwest HydroBox DF

• Sub Bottom Profiler : SyQwest StartaBox

• Magnetometer : Marine Magnetics SeaSpy

• Motion Reference Unit : Inertial Labs MRU

• Positioning & Heading Sensor : Inertial

• Sound Velocity Sensor & Profiler : AML

Edgetech Mulibeam 6205

Magnetometer

Sound Velocity Profiler

Inertial Labs

Single Beam Echosounder

Vessel and Equipment Details

Data Collection and Data Processing

The Dubai Municipality Survey boats starts data collections using the high resolution Multibeam system along with other sensors installed onboard vessel to map the seafloor in the emirates of Dubai

The tide data collected and processed ,cleaned in DM project office under the supervision of DM staff

The SVP data was collected and processed ,cleaned in DM project office

The raw data was being processed cleaned and QA / Qced in DM project office under the supervision of DM staff

Tidal Data Processing

Final output Dubai Creek