Beyond Bathymetry: Water Column Imaging with Multibeam Echo Sounder Systems

Echo sounder systems represent powerful tools not only to determine the seafloor depth, but also to investigate the water column. The most prominent fields of hydroacoustic water column applications include fish shoal detection and biomass assessments, target detection for military purposes, oil and gas leakage detection, and suspension matter analyses. Multibeam echo sounder systems (MBES) – so far primarily used for bathymetric measurements – are introduced in this study for demonstrating their water column analyses capabilities that become more and more available due to most recent computer power and mass storage advances. Some environmental data are presented in this study showing gas release from the seabed, fish shoals, zooplankton and oceanographic layers to highlight multibeam water column potentials. Moreover multibeam water column assessments are suggested to be valuable for the hydrographer as a supporting tool potentially useful for mitigating MBES survey related conflicts.