The SHOALS System - A Comprehensive Surveying Tool
Abstract
PURPOSE. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) conducts extensive hydrographic surveying in support of the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation of Federal coastal projects. The US ACE surveying program covers a broad range of project types including storm damage reduction, navigation, shore protection, and emergency response operations. Most USACE coastal surveys are performed by small launch-type vessels with acoustic fathometers. The Scanning Hydrographic Operational Airborne Lidar Survey (SHOALS) system was developed to achieve an orders-of- magnitude increase in survey speed while collecting densely spaced high-resolution data, and SHOALS has demonstrated its ability to achieve those goals. The information presented here is intended to provide essential knowledge about this new technology and its applications. BACKGROUND. In 1988, USACE began a cost-shared project with the Canadian government under the U.S./Canadian Defense Development Sharing Program for design, construction, and field verification of the SHOALS system. The term "lidar" stands for Light Detection And Ranging. USACE accepted the SHOALS system in March 1994, following field testing which indicated that the system met or exceeded all design and operational specifications. Since then, SHOALS has surveyed over 250 projects (as of March 1998) covering more than 3,000 km2. These surveys range from navigation and beach monitoring, to coastal structure evaluation, to emergency response operations. SHOALS has also performed several missions for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as the U.S. Navy, with projects varying from coral reef damage assessment to nautical charting of international waters. SHOALS consists of an airborne data collection system and a ground-based data processing system.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA612833
Entities
People
- Larry E. Parson
- W. J. Lillycrop
Organizations
- Engineer Research and Development Center