Research and Development Office

Improve Efficiency of Post-processing Multi-beam Reservoir Bathymetric Survey Data

Project ID: 1822
Principal Investigator: Caroline Ubing
Research Topic: Sediment Management and River Restoration
Funded Fiscal Years: 2018
Keywords: None

Research Question

Can a tool be developed to semi-automate post-processing procedures for multi-beam bathymetric survey data?

Need and Benefit

Reservoir sedimentation impacts all Reclamation facilities. Due to limited resources and time, approximately one-third of Reclamation reservoirs have been re-surveyed since their construction. This is problematic as the extent of the accumulated sediment (and other materials) are unknown. Bathymetric surveys allow Reclamation to monitor sedimentation, predict future accumulation rates, and potentially implement mitigation measures before sedimentation disrupts facility operations. The resources required to post-process multi-beam bathymetric data limits the number of surveys that can be conducted and evaluated. Furthermore, there is a backlog of reservoir surveys needing to be post-processed. Development of the proposed tool would decrease the resources required for each survey; thus increasing the number of reservoir surveys, which would improve our knowledge of sediment accumulation for a given reservoir/region.

Contributing Partners

Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.

Research Products

Bureau of Reclamation Review

The following documents were reviewed by experts in fields relating to this project's study and findings. The results were determined to be achieved using valid means.

Improve Efficiency of Post-processing Multi-beam Reservoir Bathymetric Survey Data (final, PDF, 1.2MB)
By Caroline Ubing, Daniel Dombrowski
Research Product completed on September 30, 2018

---

Return to Research Projects