Inspection and Error Remediation of Bathymetric Relationships of Adjoining Geo-Objects in Electronic Navigational Charts

TitleInspection and Error Remediation of Bathymetric Relationships of Adjoining Geo-Objects in Electronic Navigational Charts
Publication TypeConference Proceedings
Year2020
AuthorsKastrisios, C, Calder, BR, Bartlett, M
Conference Name8th International Conference on Cartography and GIS
Volume1
Pagination116-123
Conference LocationNessebar, Bulgaria
Keywordsautomated nautical cartography, Depth areas, digital terrain modelling, ENC validation checks, nautical surface, safety of navigation, topographic surface

Depth areas are utilized by the Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) along with the vessel's characteristics (e.g., draft, squat) and other situational information (e.g., tides) for separating safe areas from those unsafe to navigate. Any error in their compilation is carried over to the analysis performed in the ECDIS. As a result, waters may be portrayed deeper, thus posing a risk to the vessel navigating them, or may appear shoaler, thus triggering useless ECDIS alarms which contribute to the situation known as "mariner's deafness". With the exception of crisp boundaries where abrupt changes are expected, the transition between depth areas should be smooth and continuous. In this paper we present a research toward a mechanism for identifying discontinuities and an error remediation approach that proposes changes to the encoded depth range and the geometry of depth areas with identified discontinuities, for the cartographer's attention.