COMIT's Tampa Bay Nested Survey Project
November 29 - December 16, 2021
Setting the Stage
The Center for Ocean Mapping and Innovative Technologies
COMIT was established in October of 2020 through a cooperative agreement with NOAA's Office of Coast Survey. We are based at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (USF CMS) in St. Petersburg, FL.
Our backyard
We are located on the Gulf Coast of Florida where we can test, pilot, and tinker 365 days per year. The USF CMS anchors one of the largest marine science research complexes in the southeastern US.
Partners and collaborators: USGS St. Petersburg Coastal Science Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Regional Office, the US Coast Guard, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), among others.
Tampa Bay: an ideal location for collaboration, learning, and innovation
Tampa Bay is a dynamic coastal region which faces an array of different challenges related to issues of coastal resiliency, port security, and fisheries management - among others.
This makes it an ideal location for evaluating different mapping platforms and sensors to incorporate the most efficient approaches to answer scientific questions from a wide range of stakeholders, while also working towards the Seabed 2030 goal to map the world's oceans by the end of the decade.
Our work in Tampa Bay and the eastern Gulf of Mexico will result in lessons that with relevance for other coastal regions around the U.S. and globe.
Piloting the Integration of Cutting-Edge Seafloor Mapping Platforms in Nearshore Environments
Mapping the shallows
Presently, nearly half of all waters within the U.S. EEZ remain unmapped to modern standards. Mapping these waters within the timeframes proposed by ambitious state, national, and international goals will require the intelligent deployment of complementary technologies by cooperating organizations.
Advanced technology to the rescue
In our shallow coastal regions, uncrewed systems (UxVs) come into play (see an example of a USV, or Uncrewed Surface Vessel at right, SeaTrac's SP-48). USVs have much greater maneuverability and draw much less draft than most research vessels allowing them to reach extremely shallow areas.
The number of mapping sensors and platforms available on the market today is growing rapidly. One of COMIT’s goals is to evaluate these tools for performance and capability under different operational constraints and make recommendations for the appropriate blend of technologies to address specific project needs at various scales. This goal is the primary basis for the Tampa Bay Nested Survey Project.
Taking a complimentary approach
Larger-scale coverage of our area of interest (AOI) in Tampa Bay and the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW) will be completed by Fugro’s Rapid Airborne Multibeam Mapping System (RAMMS; example at right). This is a coupled LiDAR and high-resolution photography system that will be flown in a small aircraft. LiDAR is a laser-based sensor that penetrates though water to collect bathymetric data, while the photography is used to generate 3D topographic maps of the terrestrial features.
Target area
Known key locations within the AOI, such as the many passes and inlets that control the flux of water into and out of the ICWW will be further mapped using a Norbit multibeam echosounder (MBES) carried by the SeaTrac SP-48 USV. If there are areas where RAMMS is not expected to achieve full depth penetration, the USV will be used to fill in any gaps with the MBES.
Nesting these targeted MBES surveys within the broader RAMMS survey will allow COMIT to evaluate the two platform+sensor combinations individually and in tandem. Successful execution will generate mapping products that are more complete, flexible, and useful than would otherwise be achieved by using either technology alone.
Better storm surge predictions
The geometry of barrier island inlets and sediment exchange through them has significant impact on tidal flow and storm surge. This field study will map selected inlets along the west central Florida coastline to provide seamless topobathy from the terrestrial to deeper offshore. We plan to analyze the change in bathymetry through the inlets, assess how dynamic their morphologies are, and use the new data as input to the Tampa Bay coastal ocean model to quantify the importance of inlet bathymetry on storm prediction outcomes. This is extremely important as coastal communities, such as Tampa Bay, continue to experience long-term changes in sea level. This is shown in the picture at right which depicts expected maximum tide lines under business as usual emissions (red) and significant emissions reduction (blue) scenarios.
Stay tuned for updates.
Additional field campaigns under development:
- Testing whether select hydrodynamic models from the the Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System (COMPS) group at USF CMS can be improved using new bathymetry. Improved models would better predict important information like storm surge.
- Trialing Trusted Community Bathymetry data loggers in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire's Joint Hydrographic Center/Center for Ocean and Coastal Mapping (UNH-JHC/CCOM) to expand coastal bathymetry data collection efforts.Using a multibeam echosounder with multispectral backscatter to examine the relationships between surficial and sub-surface characteristics of the seafloor and how they respond acoustically with particular attention to ephemeral bedforms (e.g. sandwaves) and burial/disturbance areas.
- Innovative applications of multispectral backscatter and subbottom profiler data to characterize the number, coverage, structure, geomorphology and internal stratigraphy of stranded paleoshorelines. Better understanding the processes, timing, and pace that led to the inundation of these ancient islands can provide analogs with bearing on current challenges of coastal resiliency facing many communities today.