USE OF LIDAR TECHNOLOGY FOR COLLECTING SHALLOW-WATER BATHYMETRY OF FLORIDA BAY

Due to an accelerated decline in water quality, Florida Bay is the foc us of an inter-agency restoration program involving a modeling effort to define water circulation patterns both internally and between its s urrounding waters. Models such as these require adequate resolution of the Bay's morphologic features which are characterized by extensive s hallow water networks of mud banks, cuts, and basins. However, the inf ormation necessary to resolve the complex bathymetry does not exist on current NOAA navigation charts. The Bay's expansive shallow water cha racteristics renders much of it inaccessible by conventional waterborn e survey methods. Obtaining this information requires an alternative s urvey technology capable of covering large shallow water areas and pro ducing high resolution bathymetric data. During the spring of 1994 the SHOALS (Scanning Hydrographic Operational Airborne Lidar Survey) syst em was employed by NOAA to test its ability to resolve the complex sha llow water bathymetry for a test area in central Florida Bay. Approxim ately 13 km(2) of area was surveyed with a total surveying time of 12 hours. The data set presented here demonstrates that airborne lidar ba thymetric technology such as SHOALS can be a valuable and cost effecti ve tool for surveying large shallow water areas, without damage to the environment, that are otherwise inaccessible by conventional methods.