Creating an open map of the seabed together

All seafarers know just how important it is to have good, accurate, and up-to-date nautical charts at their disposal. These charts are essential for safe navigation, helping seafarers avoid hazards and plot their course. However, many mariners also know that the nautical charts they rely on are, at times, not as reliable as they would like them to be. The reason? Many nautical charts are based on data collected with older technology – including the lead-line and sextant technique.

In fact, most of the global seabed is poorly mapped. Some areas, particularly in deep waters, have only recently been mapped with satellite altimetry, which only gives a general picture of the seabed. Much of the more detailed mapping that has been done is not publicly available. The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project (Seabed 2030) aims to change this with a complete, open-access map of the global seabed.

Beyond the navigational charts

If we were to wind back the clock one hundred years or so, you would already see how the ocean sustains livelihoods and economic activities in sectors such as fisheries, shipping, passenger transport, and recreation. The first transatlantic telegraph cable messages had been sent between Ireland and Canada.

Today, those telegraph cables have been replaced by fibre-optic and other communication cables. Power cables link nations. Fisheries, shipping, passenger transport, and recreation are now joined by the likes of aquaculture, offshore wind farms and other types of marine renewable energy systems. Marine protected areas jostle among the ever-crowded seas in an attempt to provide a safe haven for increasingly threatened marine life. Managing and balancing all of these interests and ensuring they are sustainable relies on data about the ocean – and the seabed.

Beyond direct economic benefits, seabed data is fundamental to understanding ocean processes, climate change, how our activities are causing harm, and how we can resolve the problems we are creating. It was seabed maps that gave the evidence scientists needed to develop the theory of plate tectonics – the drifting of continents. We now understand that the shape of the seabed influences the movement of currents and waves (and the pollution they carry). It’s not just different depths that can influence the distribution of marine life, but also rugosity, slope angles, and other bathymetric properties. How ocean warming and ocean acidification rates vary with depth. We see how the different properties of the seabed can influence submarine landslides, the speed and direction of tsunami waves, and how different coastal communities may be more or less at risk from such disasters, as well as other risks such as sea level rise.

So important is seabed data to our understanding and development of a more sustainable ocean future that the Seabed 2030 project was among the earliest initiatives to be designated a flagship Ocean Decade Action by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Generating momentum

Seabed 2030’s roots began over 100 years ago with Prince Albert I of Monaco, who organised and financed the creation of GEBCO – the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans. Complete with standardised bathymetric chart nomenclature and terminology, the GEBCO has undergone numerous iterations as new data – and more accurate data thanks to technological improvements – have emerged.

The modern-day GEBCO is constructed with a low-resolution satellite altimetry-derived data basemap. Higher-resolution data collected using LIDAR, singlebeam echosounders, and multibeam echosounders is added to make the map more detailed. Finally, interpolation techniques are used to fill in the gaps where data is sparse. Unfortunately, low-resolution data and interpolation make up the bulk of the GEBCO.

Seabed 2030 was launched in 2017 to speed up the global effort to replace low-resolution, interpolated data with higher-resolution data. In 2017, just 6% of GEBCO consisted of higher-resolution data. Today in 2024, just seven years after Seabed 2030’s launch, that figure stands at just over 26%.

A community effort

The jump from 6% to 26% isn’t the result of Seabed 2030 buying and deploying a new vessel to map the seabed. Indeed, mapping the entire global seabed with a single vessel equipped with a multibeam echosounder – currently the most accurate mapping technology available – running nonstop would take approximately 1000 years.

GEBCO, which is now a joint programme of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has always been a collaborative effort. That 20% jump over the last seven years has been possible thanks to companies, organisations, governments, research institutes, and individuals who have been willing to collect and share seabed data.

Understandably, the thought of sharing data may raise some concerns. Those who do surveys on behalf of clients or for defence purposes, or have their own data for developing a wind farm, for example, may point to confidential and even sensitive information issues. Some companies have been able to mitigate these issues by providing legacy data or placing a moratorium on newer data. Some collect seabed data in transit between survey projects. For example, the geotechnical, geoscience, and survey company Fugro has shared over 2 million square kilometres of seabed data with Seabed 2030.

Furthermore, the GEBCO map doesn’t need ultra-high-resolution data that may be collected with multibeam echosounders for, say, wind farm development. Desired resolutions vary by depth, but for up to 1,500 metres depth, the ideal minimum is 100 metres by 100 metres. That’s enough to capture enough detail to make GEBCO useful but not enough to reveal intricate details that might be considered sensitive for a variety of reasons. Indeed, this 100-metre by 100-metre resolution is also why GEBCO states that their products are unsuitable for navigation.

While multibeam echosounders are “the gold standard” of mapping technologies, they are primarily found on research, military, and survey vessels. For others, such as cruise ships, cargo ships, and even smaller vessels – sailors, dive boat operators, and fishers, for example – multibeam isn’t something they can necessarily afford or even fit onto their vessel.

What is often possible – and already installed on many vessels, however, is a GPS and depth finder – a singlebeam echosounder. Add a data logger – a small device that stores depth readings and their associated GPS location, and the potential mapping community becomes even more extensive. For example, while sailor Lisa Blair was smashing speed records for solo, nonstop, and unassisted sailing around Antarctica in 2022, the data logger she placed on board her yacht Climate Change Now collected vital data from her single-beam depth finder and GPS.

Meanwhile, the International SeaKeepers Society, a science-based non-profit promoting oceanographic research, conservation, and education, has placed over 80 data loggers on vessels participating in their DISCOVERY Yacht Fleet to collect data for Seabed 2030. Larger vessels like cruise and cargo ships likely have data recorders built into their navigational systems that can be downloaded and shared. Since the only data needed is depth and GPS location, all the data can be anonymised before sharing. No personally identifiable data is shared on GEBCO when publishing.

Making a contribution

At the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference in April, Seabed 2030 welcomed four new partners – the Marine Technology Society, the Challenger 150 initiative, which coordinates the mapping of deep-sea life, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, and the Nordic Hydrographic Commission. Outside the conference, startup Ocean Ledger and the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland have also recently formalised their partnerships. Each of these and the existing partnerships will bolster mapping efforts.

For those organisations, partnering with Seabed 2030 is also an opportunity to solidify their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) objectives with tangible and measurable actions that support the objectives of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development - “a clean ocean,” “a healthy and resilient ocean, “a productive ocean, ”a predicted ocean,” “a safe ocean,” “an accessible ocean,” and “an inspiring and engaging ocean.”

Like the Ocean Decade’s objectives, completing an open-access global seafloor map by 2030 is an ambitious task. Like all ambitious tasks, success will come not because of the efforts of one individual or one organisation but because of the efforts of a community. In the words of Helen Keller, “alone we can do so little. Together, we can do so much.”

Whether you’re an individual or part of a company or organisation, if you want to help build an open map of the seabed, reach out and start a conversation.

This story was written for Seabed 2030