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TOPIC: Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes

Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 2 weeks ago #12000

  • Lloyd
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Hi. I am starting a project for a national park in Canada. We have a number of small lakes (100 -1000 ha) that need updated bathymetry. Most of the lakes were last surveyed by handline in the 1930's. Here are my constraints and considerations:
  • Most lakes are less than 40m deep.
  • The updated bathymetry will be used for aquatic habitat assessments and for distribution to the public for angling/boating.
  • The lakebeds are soft-bottomed, don't have complex underwater topography and we won't need to map any hazards (wrecks, submerged features). The resolution doesn't have to be super detailed but should be a big improvement on the 1930's data.
  • For surveying, we will be able to use a small jon boat and electric motor on a couple lakes but for most of the lakes we will be limited to a canoe or kayak. We can dedicate up to 5 days of survey time to the larger lakes and 1 day for the smaller lakes.
  • We need raster and vector datasets that can be viewed/analysed in Arc and GoogleEarth. For public distribution, we would need to generate geo-referenced pdf maps and, ideally, datasets that can be uploaded to common commercial sonar units. I have limited competency using ArcMap so I'm hoping for a solution that is fairly tech-friendly.
  • The budget for sonar hardware and software must be under C$3000 (US$2400).
  • Is Reefmaster a good software option for this project? If so, what would you recommend for compatible off-the-shelf hardware (Hummingbird, Lowrance, Garmin?)

    Thanks for your time and help!

    Brad
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Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 2 weeks ago #12002

  • gpiverson
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If my math is right, 5 days of surveying a 1000 hectares lake on a canoe comes to about 320 meters (back and forth) or 640 meters (grid) transects divided by the number of hours a day (e.g. 40-80 meter transects going 8 hours a day).

Regardless of what system you process them with, I'd encourage you to also upload to a crowd sourced site like Insight Genesis if you're aiming for public distribution. Each site has different restrictions for input sonar log format. None of the consumer aimed sites will let you download the resulting vector/raster in a format that can be loaded into ArcMap. Outside of the crowd sourced environment, Lowrance (or any of the brands in the Navico family) will be your go to unit for producing ready to use charts. The other brands are very limited on that option.

If you choose to go with Reefmaster for processing, any chart plotter that exports compatible sonar logs will work. If your goal is to produce raster and vector charts for Navico units, Reefmaster will let you have the most control over that process.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 weeks ago by gpiverson.
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Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 2 weeks ago #12005

  • Lloyd
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Thanks! That's helpful. I should clarify that the primary purpose for the bathymetry is for ecological assessments and most of the analysis will use ArcMap. So I guess I need to confirm if this will work:
  • a somewhat portable Lowrance unit and mounting hardware for canoe/kayaks
  • survey using 40-80m transects (note that we won't need 100% coverage and can likely get away with 50% - I'm assuming that the reefmaster processing will infill/extrapolate?)
  • process with Reefmaster to produce Arc-compatible vector and raster layers
  • upload the data onto a crowd-sourced site for ease of public distribution (what gets uploaded - raw sonar files or the processed files?)
If this seems like it will work, what specs should I be looking for on the sonar unit and transducer?

Thanks again for your help.
Cheers
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Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 1 week ago #12006

  • gpiverson
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Coverage, when you're building a map off non-multibeam parallel passes, is subjective. You can always extend the interpolation/extrapolation but the level of coverage is really defined based on the transect distance unless you're only surveying half the lake.

Whether Reefmaster will work for you is dependent on what types of layers you'll need extracted for your ecological assessments.

For crowd-sourced sites, you'll usually need raw sonar logs. There's some exceptions.

I'll let others give you advise on the best hardware setup.
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Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 1 week ago #12007

  • robsfishingstory
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Check out biobasemaps.com.
Last Edit: 3 years 1 week ago by robsfishingstory. Reason: None
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Need to generate bathymetric maps for remote lakes 3 years 1 week ago #12023

  • Lloyd
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That looks very promising. Thanks!
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