Satellite Remote Sensing as a Reconnaissance Tool for Assessing Nautical Chart Adequacy and Completeness

National hydrographic offices need a better means of assessing the adequacy of existing nautical charts in order to plan and prioritize future hydrographic surveys. The ability to derive bathymetry from multispectral satellite imagery is a topic that has received considerable attention in scientific literature. However, published studies have not addressed the ability of satellite-derived bathymetry to meet specific hydrographic survey requirements. Specifically, the bathymetry needs to be referenced to a chart datum and statistical uncertainty estimates of the bathymetry should be provided. Ideally, the procedure should be based on readily-available, low-cost software, tools, and data. This paper describes the development and testing of a procedure using publicly-available, multispectral satellite imagery to map and portray shallow-water bathymetry in a GIS environment for three study sites: Northeast United States, Nigeria, and Belize. Landsat imagery and published algorithms were used to derive estimates of the bathymetry in shallow waters, and uncertainty of the satellite-derived bathymetry was then assessed using a Monte Carlo method. Results indicate that the practical procedures developed in this study are suitable for use by national hydrographic offices.