Response Entry 2

1.

Research Question: “What is the best way to perform a hydrographic survey along Nova Scotia’s coastline?”

2.

Article:

Clarke, J. E., Mayer, L. A., & Wells, D. E. (1996). Shallow-water imaging multibeam sonars: A new tool for investigating seafloor processes in the coastal zone and on the continental shelf. Marine Geophysical Researches,18(6), 607-629. doi:10.1007/bf00313877

Book:

Lillesand, T. M., Kiefer, R. W., & Chipman, J. W. (2015). Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation (7th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Website:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hydrographic Surveying. Retrieved from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/navigation/hydro/

3.

The chosen website provides a good and basic understanding of the different kinds of hydrographic surveying in deep waters as well as coastlines. This would be a good starting point to do some research and have a general idea of how to go about surveying a coastline before writing the research paper. This website shouldn’t be used as the sole resource when researching this topic as it does not go into much depth. This website is bias towards NOAA and could make it seem as though their processes are the right way to go about a hydrographic survey. Overall, this is a good resource to get started.

The chosen article provides an in-depth description of multibeam sonar specifically for coastal or shallow areas. An issue in using this source is that it is from 1996 and a lot has changed since then in terms of hydrographic surveying (e.g. LiDAR is also a very good option now for coastlines). Contrarily, because this article focuses on multibeam sonar as if it is a “new tool” it will give an extensive amount of detailed information without the influence of alternative surveying methods such as LiDAR and explanations for people just discovering its existence. Also, the article was written by members of the Ocean Mapping Group from the University of New Brunswick so it may be biased in their interpretation and application of multibeam sonar and seabed backscatter but UNB is in the Maritimes and a lot of their geographic issues would also apply to Nova Scotia. Overall, this is a good source in terms of retrieving information about multibeam but does not provide a great overview of the best and current way to survey a coastline as LiDAR is now used.

The chosen book provides a good understand of remote sensing and LiDAR, which ties nicely with the chosen article and website described above to answer the research question in depth. The disadvantage of this book is that it does not provide any information of multibeam sonar. Therefore, it provides information on the LiDAR aspect to my research question but is not ideal for the big picture. This book is a reliable source as the publishing company provides a lot off recognized academic publishing and instructional materials.