UK Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP)

Overview: UK Civil Hydrography Programme

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) has overall responsibility for the UK’s hydrographic obligations under the Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS). The MCA manages a multi-million-pound budget to systematically survey the waters around the UK. This programme is known as the “UK Civil Hydrography Programme” (UK CHP). Under the UK CHP, commercial contracts are let to ensure accurate hydrographic information is gathered for updating the nation’s nautical charts and publications.

The UK CHP prioritises areas of highest navigational safety risk and surveys and maps UK home waters - defined by the boundaries of the UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone, an area in excess of 720,000km2 - in order to keep our nation’s nautical charts and publications current, safe and fit for purpose.

The MCA makes extensive use of geographic information systems (GIS) to prioritise survey areas using a contemporary risk analysis methodology capable of reflecting the changing pressures of the maritime sector.

The hydrographic survey work commissioned for the UK CHP is undertaken by contractors, who gather and report seabed data using their own personnel, equipment and vessels.

The UK CHP workscope is divided into the following streams:

Routine Resurvey Programme - navigationally critical shallow water areas with mobile seabed;

Shallow Water surveys - predominantly 0m to 40m water depth; and

Medium Water surveys – 0m to 200m water depth.

To support the requirements of the UK CHP, the MCA specifies state-of-the-art survey technologies including high resolution multibeam echosounders (MBES) and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to ensure accurate high-quality hydrographic information is gathered. Additionally, more focused work includes high-resolution wreck investigations, water column data collection and seabed grab sampling.