Spotlight

Surveying and cartography

The illustration shows a dense 3D point cloud of the Polish ferry "Jan Heweliusz", which sank in 1993 in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the island Rügen, based on multibeam echo sounder data (WebGL-based visualization by http://potree.org/). Navigate in the 3D model on the desktop PC with the help of your mouse (pressing and holding the left/right mouse button for rotation/translation, zoom by mouse wheel) or on the mobile device intuitively by touch control.

Sea surveying and wreck search provide basic data

Every year, BSH vessels cover approximately 12,000 km with depth soundings on the approximately 57,000 km² wide seabed of the German part of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. They survey the maritime areas in German territory and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In addition to the survey of the seabed and the constantly changing tidal flats, they search for underwater obstructions such as wrecks, boulders or similar. In order to ensure safety, hydrographic surveying must constantly measure better than shipping can navigate.

The results of the surveys and other information flow into the official nautical charts, which the BSH publishes in paper form and as electronic nautical charts. They cover the German territorial waters and the German EEZ. Users of nautical charts must constantly update them; the paper nautical charts on the basis of the Notices to Mariners, the electronic nautical charts through updates. If there are too many changes, the BSH issues new editions.