Developments in hydrography in the Netherlands

Developments in hydrography in the Netherlands

by Prof. ir.J.A. Spaans

Reportnr. 759-P

Publication Lloyds List, 16 December 1986

Defft-Unlverslty-ofTechnology

Ship Hydromechanics laboratory Mèketiieg 2

DEVELOPMENTS IN HYDROGRAPHY IN THE NETHERLANDS

The exploration and exploitation of offshore oil and gas fields, and the e<ecution of large offshore dredging and construction won-s such as the

Dutch Delta Works have considerably contributed to the advance in science and practice of hydrography in the Netherlands in the last decades. Like many other countries, however, the cradle of hydrography 'has bEen the work related to tho collection and processing of

hydrographic d:ata for the prdLtction of nautical charts, sailing directions, tide tables etc.

HISTORY

Nautical chartmaking in the Nethrlands goes back as far as the 16th century when Gerard MercatDr constructed his, first charts with straight rhumbli,nes. The United East Indies Company ,founded in 1602 and

disbanded in 1800 had her own Charting Department

using contemporary scientists like Petrus Pl.ancius to update

their hydrographic charts and sailing directions to the latest state of the art techn'i4ues Shipmasters also used their private charts however, like the "bluebacks";. it was not seldom that these charts wer-e used during an entire career without official revision.

Several governmental committees were appointed in the 1.9th and 19th century tO car'ry ut surveys in the Dutch East and West Indies and' on the coast of Holland. It was not until 1874 when a Hydrographic Bureau officially became part of the Royal Navy From 1080 until 194') a

systematic survey was carried oLtt in the former Dutch Eas,t Indian

Archipelago,. Furthermore surveys were carried out In Suri.name, the West Indies and as a matter 0f course on the Dutch Continental Shelf and coastline, where in 1848 the most. important sea-arms were charted on a geometric basis, this won being further improved and refined when time went on.

After World War II,, Decca Navigator Chains became important toolsfor hydrographic surveys. In 1956 DeccaChains were especially installed in New Guinea for extensive hydrographic surveys of these areas.

Electronic positioning systems like Hi-Fix, Trident an'd others came gradualJy into use and automatic data collection and processing on board of Hr Ms Survey vessels was introduced in 197.3.

An important feat of arms of the Hydrographic Bureau was the Snellius Expedition to the Banda Sea in 1929 and 1930 for oceanographic and geological research. A stream of scientific publications resulted

from this expedition. '

Recently t.he Snellius II Expedition has taken place

as a Joint, program of Indonesia and the Netherlands. The aims and

.organ.isation of this expedition are described in a recent article in the Hydrographic Journal by the former President of the Hydrographic Societ,,.' and former Chief Hydrographer in 'the Netherlands., Rear Admiral J.C.

Kreffer who' was Chairman of the Sriiellius II Planning Committee for the Netherlands. The huge amounts of collected scientific data will be investigated and processed by Indonesi an and Dutch researchers and the, results will be gradually published in th near future. '

THE NETHERLANDS HYDROGRAPHI'C INSTITUTE

As part of a project to improve tho efficiency of governmental

organisations the Dutch government published in 1982 a r-eport called "Note on the harmonis'ation 'of North Sea policy". In matri.xform all user functions of the.North Sea were defind., together with the' governmental departments involved with those 'functions. The action

program evaluated 'from this report involved over .0 action points

concerning coopEration between governmental departments i'n the areas of shipping, fishery, offshore mining, environmental protection,

-1-operationaEask1.

'

One of the dction points concerns the founding of a National Coastguard as a cooperative organisation for the operational execution, of the

following. North Sea tasks:. ' .

- all tasks concerning surveillance and tracing of offence - non-judicial surveillance tasks

- traffic regulation - traffic investigation

- offshore traffic tasks .

-- coastal surveillance ' . .

- distress,, emergency and safety radio traffic - rescue operations

- calamity abatement ' . .' .

Another policy decision has been the founding of a Netherlands

Hydrographic Institute, where Government Departments involved in the collection and processing of hydrographic data in the North Sea and her Sea Arms are cooperatin,g in the assignment of vessels and equipment. The Institute has also a coordinating task in the hydrographic works

that have to be carried out for charting, safety of shipping etc The departments cooperating in this Institute are': '

-the Hydrographic Bureau of the Royal Navy

-the Hydrographic Survey section of Rijkswaterstaat dept. North Sea -the sections of the Directorate General of Shipping and Maritime

Affairs of the Min. o-F Transport involved in survey operations. CIV IL HYDROGRAPHY

One a-f the earliest companies involved in offshore surveying was

"Shell". In the late sixties this company introduced "quality control" as an obligatory part of a hydrographic wor Mr Riemersma,well known

in the Hydrographic Community as Chairman of Commision IV of the "Federation Internationale des Seometres"(FIG) introduced the subject of Quality Control fr the first time on a FIG congress in the early seventees in 'Stockholm. Mr. Riemersma , now Head of Shell Topographic

Services and Advice, explains that his' department is working worldwide with over 17 offices with a total staff of about 100 . Their work

consists mainly of supervising contract surveys for exploration ,production and engineering works. The Keyword in' thei.r work is

is "Q.A. Management"(Quality Assurance) i.e. drawing up specifications -for a work and taking all neccessary precautionary measures to ensure that the work is carried' out according to those specifications.

A major cdncern a-f Shell Topographic Services of recent years is the measurement o-f offshore platforms subsidence, a Job which has to 'be carried out with.speci'fications in the order of centimeters. The use of phase measurements of the satellite signals of the Global Positioning System (GFS) is the only way to meet these requirements

Good hydrographic education and training, is ssential for Q.A. says M,r Riemersma, a statement which was confirmed by Mr Schothorst, Director of

Intersite Surveys in Haarlem,one of the leading Hydrographic Survey Companies in the Netherlands. This company was formed in the seventies

like other Dutch offshore survey companies such as Osiris Cesco, NESA and Oretech as a resu'lt'of the Offshore 'Boom in oil and gas e:ploration

and exploitation arid the need for specialised surveywork,for the Delta Works in the South-West of Holland.

The depression in the dff'shore industry has her reflection ,on the survey companies as well Many exploration and engineering works have been

postponed or cancelled because of 'the dramatic fall in oil price. Inspection works for pipelines and platforms, cable laying projects., specialised work like platform subsidence measurement etc are works

of suc:h an integrated hydrographic. survey system is shown in the figure where seven microcomputers are configured to perform a pipeline survey system wi th a "Towed and controlled remote operated (:under.water)

vehicle" (TACROV).

FIGURE

Integrated Hydrographic Survey System -For pipeline surveys.

EDUCATION

The need for well qualified hydrographic surveyors was noticed in the

mid seventies by the Hogere Zeevaartschool Amsterdam where the author -of this this article was then vice-director . After a thorough market survey to

establish the need for hydrographic- surveyors, a four year training course at BSc level was started in 1978:. Government Departments and Industry have given their, full cooperation toenlistprobationers of this. course during. their third year which has to be spent gaining

practical work ex-per-ience.During this year the student has to work with at least two employers'; a mentor is appointed in the company to ensure that the etLident is doing useful work for his education Won reports and job descriptions are sent to the College ,which has proved to be very instructive for both the students and the lecturers' Lecturers who have been teaching for some years will keep in touch this way with the latest hydrographic practice and instrumentation

GradLiates in Hydrography of the Hogere Zeevaartschool Amsterdam have found employment all over the world; the first recognition of "A-level" for a civil hydrographic education byt-he FIG/IHO Advisory Roard will certainly have contributed to the reputation of the this school.

The depression in the offshore industry is however noticable and some graduates of the hydrography course have found employment

in related industries onshore, noticable in automation and software industries.

THE DUTCH DELTA WORKS

A combination o-F an extremely severe NW-ly storm and springtide caused the flooding of large aras in the South West of Holland i-n february

1953 The disaster caused 185U casualties and large material damage to properties The Delta Law was adopted by the government, which provided for the heightening of dikes and the cl.osin.g of most of the sea arms in the South West of Holland This multi billion guilders project has been a severe budgetary burden for the government (and the tax-payer) since then.

In 1976 the decision was made for the most difficult part

of

the Delta project, the closing

of

the 3 kilometer entrance o-f the Easter Scheldt with a storm surge barrier equipped with sliding doors which keep the unique salt water environment and ecological systems in the Easter Scheldt unaffected. Only during extreme high water the slides will be closed. Her Majesty the- Queen of 'Holland just recent.l.y offic:ially opened. the barrier in the presence of over 2500 invitees from all, over the.

world. .

PHOTO

View Of the Storm SLirge Barrier of the Easter Sche.ldt; the project has been a technology push for hydrographic surveying in the Netherlands (photo Bart Hofmeester)

The 5 billion guilders Easter Scheldt Barrier is :certainly a masterpiece of Dutch Waterworks; all partswerø prefabricated on shore and on

-3-artificial islands near the site _{To carry the 42 meter wide and 5} 4-meter thick slides, 65 pillars of 18000 tons were construted and

transported to the site where the specifications for the positioning of the pillar were 15 centimeter in X and V direction and 7 milimeter per

meter in Z d:irection.

Several dedicated vessels were built for the project The "Mytilus" equipped with lar-ge vibrator.s condensed the underground jr order to prevent sagging of the constructon. The condensed Llnderground was dredged flat by the "Cardium" and covered with foundation mats. The accuracy specifications were in the order of centimetrs and had never been achieved before in dredgring operations. The "Cardium" was equipped therefore with an array of 24 echosounders, 20 sand thickness sensors, acoustic positioning systems, several surface positioning and navigation systems, scanning sonars etc., all copu.ter controlled by a dual set of minicomputers The "Ostrea" was specially built to transport the pillars to the site and the "Macoma" was designed to assist in the final

positioning of the pillars. The bottom crawler "Portunus" was built for inpection of the foundation layers..

Because of, the extreme low visibility in the water, special acoustic sensors were developed for remote sen sing and measurements, such as the

3D profiler Mesotech 965 For surface positioning several automatic tracking theodelites, using infrared light beams, were manufactured

(ilinilir) having an accuracy of 5 centimeters at 1 km distance.

During the pear of the woris, 12fl hydrographic surveyors were at work on the project, both from government departments(Rijkswaterstaat) and from the combined construction company Dosbouw. .

The experience gained in the. Easter Scheldt project was unique arid has been a technology push in the science and practice of hydrography in the Netherlands.

THE NETHERLANDS BRANCH OF THE HYDROGRAPHIC SOCIETY

In 1981 the first Branch of the Hydrographic Society was formed in the Netherlands with 80 individual members and 20 corporate members.

Membership has doubled since then to over 160 individual and C)

corporate members in 1986. The activity of the Branch is high, considering a program of 6 won shops and an AGM in the year 1985 each of them being visited by at least sn participants A recent noticable event in the Netherland Branch was the establishing of a Committee to organise the newt HYDRO-88 event in Amsterdam. Delegates of HYDRO-86 are recommended to keep their agendas free for the

HYDRO-88 symposium in Amsterdam from 14 to 18 November 1988. Excur-sion.s to the Delta Works will be Organised

Prof.ir.Jac Spaans started his career as a merchant marine officer from 1.954 until 1960. He then started teaching in the Nautical Education in Amsterdam After studying for his teaching degree in navigation he studied mathematics at the Delft Un:iversity of Technology.

From 1974 until 1982 he was parttime researther at the Navigation Research Center of the Netherlands Maritime Institute (now MARIN).

In 1977 he became vice-director of the Nautical College (Hogere Zeevaartschool) in Amsterdam where he initiated the Hydrographic Department wjth the FIG/IHO. recognised 4 year course.

In 1980 Prof. Spaans became parttlme professor In Navigation at the Department of. Maritime Technol:ogy. ofthe Delft University. Besides

Nautical Toacher education of the "Vereeni'ging Cornelis Douwes" and he teaches Hydrography at the Hydrographic Depar-tment of the Hogere Zeevaartschool Amsterdam. He j.s further active as a consultant in Navigation and Hydrography in the Industry.

Prof. Spaans is. President of the. Netherlands Institute of Navigation -and Vice Chairman of the Netherl-ands Branch of the Hydrographic