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TCarta Plans Bathymetric Mapping Workshop for Jamaica in Collaboration with Seabed 2030

TCarta Marine · February 5, 2024 ·

Read on GISuser

TCarta Marine, a global provider of hydrospatial products and services, will conduct a week-long coastal bathymetric mapping workshop for hydrographic surveyors in Jamaica. The workshop will be hosted by the Jamaica National Land Agency (NLA) and supported by The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 project. 

High-resolution satellite derived bathymetry in Port Antonio, Jamaica

Scheduled for the week of February 5, 2024, at the NLA Surveys & Mapping Division headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, the workshop will instruct participants in the use of satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) technology with the TCarta Trident Geoprocessing Toolbox. The software-as-a-service SDB Toolbox operates within Esri ArcGIS Pro and enables users to perform their own extraction of bathymetric measurements from satellite, aerial, and UAV imagery.

“TCarta greatly appreciates Seabed 2030’s continuing commitment to expand hydrographic mapping education around the world,” said TCarta President Kyle Goodrich. “Data sets created in our workshops will be included in the Seabed 2030 global database and will also be used in diverse coastal management projects by Jamaica.”

The Seabed 2030 program was launched by The Nippon Foundation of Japan and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) program to inspire the complete mapping of the ocean floor by the end of the decade. A flagship program of the UN Ocean Decade, Seabed 2030 will make the data publicly available to support coastal resilience, environmental protection, and other marine applications. 

TCarta first introduced Jamaican hydrographers to the SDB Toolbox in a 2022 training session. The Toolbox, which was developed by TCarta with funding from the National Science Foundation, contains a pre-processing tool to allocate calibration and validation in situ source data, two algorithm workflows to derive water depth measurements using Machine Learning and empirical regression, and a statistics estimation tool for quality assurance of derived water depth measurements. 

“NLA Jamaica is eager to map the nation’s waters and contribute the data set to Seabed 2030 in time to be included in the 2024 published data,” states Diego Billings, Senior Hydrographic Surveyor for the National Land Agency, “We have already seen the benefits of producing SDB in support of NLA’s operations, and we’re looking forward to building our expertise, so that we can use these tools more flexibly.”

This year’s workshop seeks to produce SDB maps of the entire coastal area of Jamaica, including the environmentally and economically important Pedro Cays. Participants will extract seafloor depth data from multispectral Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and use NASA ICESat-2 LiDAR data for validation. The resulting data sets will include water depth measurements at 10-meter resolution to an average depth of 20 meters.

“The 2024 workshop will be led by hydrographers from TCarta’s Colorado and Jamaica offices,” said Goodrich. “We hope to hold similar SDB coastal mapping workshops in other Caribbean locations later this year and are actively seeking partnerships with hydrographic agencies in the region.”

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Growth & Jobs | NLA uses hydrography to harness potential of blue economy

TCarta Marine · December 19, 2023 ·

The National Land Agency (NLA) has been using hydrography to harness the potential of the blue economy, while fulfilling its mandate of mapping the landscape of Jamaica’s territorial waters.

Read in The Gleaner

From left: Member of the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard, L.S. Cox; senior hydrographic surveyor at the National Land Agency (NLA), Diego Billings; NLA’s assistant hydrographic surveyor, Brian Scott; president of the TCarta Marine LLC, Kyle Goodrich; assistant hydrographic surveyor, NLA, Matthew-Dane Henry; and field assistant, NLA, Orean Hinds, pause for a photo after a technical exchange activity where the NLA team trained the TCarta president on how to use a multi-beam echo sounder to determine the water depth of the East and West harbours in Port Antonio, Portland.

The blue economy is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth and improved livelihoods and jobs, while preserving the health of the ocean ecosystem.

In a recent interview with JIS News, senior hydrographic surveyor at the NLA, Diego Billings, pointed out that having an “improved understanding of the sea floor, through hydrography, can be used to harness the full potential of the blue economy by seizing opportunities to boost economic growth, improve livelihoods and intensify trade activities, all while preserving the sea’s ecosystem”.

He added that, through its Topographic Hydrographic Survey Unit, the NLA has continued, and continues, to “honour its fulfilment to stakeholders through the collection, maintenance and distribution of accurate data obtained from regular surveys of Jamaica’s ports and harbours”.

This is done through routine surveys conducted in different locations throughout the year.

“Since the start of the year, surveys have been conducted at Rosey Hole, Port Royal and the west and east harbours of Port Antonio, and plans are in place for four additional hydrographic surveys to be conducted at the Montego Bay, Negril, Black River and Ocho Rios harbours by the end of 2023,” Billings pointed out.

“The information collected from these surveys is crucial for ensuring smooth and safe navigation for ships and other marine activities,” he informed.

Some of these activities include maritime boundary delimitation, national marine spatial data infrastructure, marine defence and security, coastal zone management and recreational boating, among others.

The senior hydrographer also shared that the quality of the hydrographic survey results has been enhanced with the help of technological advancements over the years.

One such enhancement is the employment of the Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB) method in hydrographic surveys.

This approach, said Billings, “enables us to produce bathymetric maps of extensive regions, which allows for more effective and efficient use of time and resources”.

The first accomplishment using this method was achieved through a collaborative case study with TCarta Caribe in 2020 when a hydrographic survey of the Bowden Harbour in St Thomas was completed using the SDB.

Billings also noted: “Drones have been used to map the shorelines of the seas, which has resulted in significant reduction in the overall time it takes to complete surveys.”

Against the background of Jamaica being a council member within the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), Billings said that “with such responsibility, there is increased motivation to expand the country’s imprint in the arena of ocean mapping”.

Plans are therefore underway for Jamaica to participate in the Nippon-Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project.

“This initiative aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development,” Billings pointed out.

As part of the project, hydrographers from the NLA will be tasked with mapping Jamaica’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The team will consist of two Category-A and one Category-B hydrographic professionals who have received international training and are certified by the International Federation of Surveyors, IHO and the International Cartographic Association.

“It will be a challenging-yet-rewarding endeavour. By 2030, the hydrographic data collected from Jamaica’s EEZ will be combined with other seabed mapping data to create a comprehensive digital map of the world’s ocean floor,” Billings noted.

“We are enthusiastic about the potential of this global endeavour and its impact on the development of Jamaica’s blue economy,” he added.

On June 21, the NLA joined the rest of the world to celebrate World Hydrography Day, under the theme ‘Hydrography – Underpinning the Digital Twin of the Ocean’.

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+1 (303) 284-6144

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