COMMITTEE ON SHIPPING HYDROGRAPHY SEMINAR 2008

27 February 2008, City Cruise Terminal, Dock Gate 10

Southampton, 10:00am

Introduction

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) held the annual Committee on Shipping Hydrography (COSH) Seminar at the City Cruise Terminal, Dock Gate 10, Southampton on 27 February 2008.  The COSH meeting provided an excellent opportunity for all attendees to find out about areas of the seabed which will be surveyed by a number of government organisations in the forthcoming years.

COSH was initially established in 1976 and has been the forum through which the MCA meets with its stakeholders to ensure proper consultation in the Agency’s management of the Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP).  The CHP has a multi-million pound budget to systematically survey the waters around the U.K.  Commercial contracts are let regularly to ensure accurate hydrographic information is gathered for updating the nation's nautical charts and publications.

In previous years COSH has been a relatively small group consisting of around 20 people, but with the advent of multibeam echosounders and the consequential step-change in the usefulness of bathymetric data, a number of Government organisations are now surveying for reasons other than safety of navigation. The MCA were not slow to realise that this increase in survey effort could be capitalised upon by improving the integration of hydrographic survey data-gathering programmes.  Because of this, the MCA decided to increased the number of people invited.

We had a very good turn out at the seminar, around 80 people attending.  The large number of attendees meant we gained a much wider feedback and it provided the opportunity for government and private bodies to integrate hydrographic work programmes to provide efficiency savings not just for the MCA but all parties.  The MCA felt that the event was very successful are already currently in negotiations with a number of organisations about the possibility of data sharing.

The MCA would like to thank all those who attended and presented at this years COSH Seminar in making the event a successful one and hope to see you again next year.

Seminar Papers (please click on links below for access to papers)

Invitation List
Programme
Attendees List
Civil Hydrography Programme Leaflet

Presentations from Seminar (Click on links to access presentations from Seminar)

Session 1:    The Civil Hydrography Programme

Rob Spillard - Survey results for 2007-2008
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA)

David Parker - Proposed Programme for 2008-2009
The United kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO)

Session 2:    Good Practice

David Cotton - Data, Archiving, Distribution and Metadata Standards
Marine data Information Partnership (MDIP)

Frank Tindall  - 'Who Shares, Wins'
Ministry of Defence (MoD)

Session 3:    Othere Data Gathering Programmes

Neil Golding - An Overview of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee's Data Gathering Programme
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)

Dr Travis Mason - Nearshore bathymetric surveys by the Strategic Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes of England
Channel Coastal Observatory

David Limpenny - CEFAS: Data Gathering Programme
Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)

Bob Gatliff - An overview of the British Geological Society’s Data Gathering Programme
British Geological Survey (BGS)

Dr Chris Pater - Maritime Archaeology and Ongoing Survey Work
English Heritage

Roger Barker - An overview of Trinity House Surveys
Trinity House

Nick Holden - An overview of the Environment Agency’s data gathering Programme
Environment Agency

**  Please note due to the size  and also the restrictions put in place by our Information Communication Technology Team (ICT), we our unable to upload some of the presentations from the Seminar.  If you would like to receive a copy of any of the presentations currently not uploaded on to the COSH webpage,  please send your requst to navigationsafety@mcga.gov.uk and a CD will be distributed asap.**