Background

Bathymetry is the measure of sea floor depth. Bathymetric mapping of the oceans is equivalent to mapping topography on land, which has vast utility and applications for science, the public, governments and industry. Generally, very little is known about the sea floor. Existing maps of the sea floor are often low resolution, having been derived from satellites or inversion of potential field geophysical data, and only provide a general indication of water depth. Bathymetric data is collected in multiple ways e.g. Satellite, Single beam echo sounder (SBES) and Multibeam echo sounder (MBES) and MBES data is considered to be the most precise and accurate acquisition method, after decades of collection and use globally. Despite efforts to unify MBES acquisition, processing and delivery, there are no globally recognised standards to adhere to. Currently, there are many organisations using various acquisition systems and parameters, processing strategies and data formats that limit the usability and interoperability of MBES data, particularly when attempting to combine datasets to map large regions of the seabed. Therefore, defining MBES specifications for L3 products (Table 1) is an important step towards standardisation and data optimisation.

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Table 1. AusSeabed data level L3 definition.