Australian Multibeam Guidelines

The Australian Multibeam Guidelines were established by the AusSeabed consortium. The guidelines provide recommended procedures for survey planning, data acquisition and submission. They are designed for a range of audiences, from those experienced in seafloor mapping using multibeam sonar systems, non-experts who are developing mapping capabilities, and those contracting seafloor mapping surveys using swath systems. These guidelines aim to improve interoperability, discoverability and accessibility of MBES system data, and encourage improved acquisition standards to better meet end-user requirements. We acknowledge that to achieve such an aim, adaptation of the project might be necessary and could impact time and cost. However, in most cases, the inconvenience of varying parameters will be outweighed by the increased utility of the data to a wider user base. These guidelines aim to provide a standard set of requirements for seafloor mapping activities conducted in Australian waters and comply with international initiatives (such as Seabed2030) to ensure that national efforts can provide global impact. They are designed to complement the purpose-based requirements and associated documentation related to specific survey requirements (e.g., hydrographic surveys; seabed infrastructure planning or installation). The guidelines include a broad examination of data processing and guidance for data submission with recommendations for all three types of swath acoustic data (bathymetry, backscatter and water column backscatter) relevant across all water depths and adopt international guidelines where appropriate. They do not include instrument preparation activities such as bench/workshop tests, personnel requirements, or provide survey costing information. This revision of the Australian Multibeam Guidelines (version 2) contains information previously published in the Seafloor Mapping Field Manual for Multibeam Sonar (Lucieer et al., 2018) as chapter 8 (Multibeam acoustics for marine monitoring) and, as such, will also succeed the Seafloor Mapping Field Manual for Multibeam Sonar as chapter 3 in the second release of the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Field manuals for Marine Sampling to Monitor Australian Waters (Przeslawski and Foster, 2018). The decision to make this extension to the guidelines and inclusion in the NESP suite of Field Manuals was made by AusSeabed and the NESP to allow both initiatives to continue with a single reference document to inform seabed mapping and eliminate the complications and community confusion associated with the maintenance of two reference documents with extensive overlap.