Pathfinder: The use of multibeam echo-sounding in quantifying and monitoring water quality and sediment fluxes in aquatic environments

地球表面上所有的自然水流都运输沉积物（包括泥、沙和淤泥），既有沿着河床的，也有悬浮在水流中的。沉积物的搬运和沉积导致了从最小尺度的沙波纹到最大的河流三角洲和海底沉积扇的各种地貌。此外，了解沉积物的迁移对于评估污染物颗粒在许多环境和一系列工业应用中的命运至关重要，例如工程结构周围的沉积物侵蚀和迁移，例如桥梁和海底设施周围以及疏浚作业期间。为了更好地了解沉积物在自然环境中的运输和沉积，从而将其纳入环境管理战略（以及水框架指令的会议），我们需要能够测量床（海床，湖床，河床）表面形状或形态并测量沉积物运输的方法。近年来，多波束回声探测系统的发展取得了惊人的进展，该系统使用回声探测器波束阵列以非常高的精度（垂直精度低至毫米）测量水流底部（如海洋或河流的河床）的表面形状。这些仪器利用声音从海床的反射来测量流体的深度，从而绘制出海床沉积物表面的详细地图。这些仪器使我们能够看到河流和海洋的底部，就好像所有的水都被慢慢地排干了，沉积物的形态没有受到影响，被完美地展示出来。这项技术在我们如何观察地球表面、存在哪些沉积形式以及我们如何解释它们方面产生了一个台阶式的变化，这种高分辨率的调查还使我们能够观察不同时期的形状变化，从而及时评估沉积物体积的变化，以应对人类影响和自然变化。与项目伙伴RESON合作，开发了一种方法，使用MBES同时量化水深测量和水柱内悬浮沉积物的浓度和通量，使用声束通过水柱获得的声学返回中包含的信息。我们已经开发了一套处理代码和软件，对这些庞大的数据集进行分析，并组装了一套校准，用于将声学返回转换为可量化的沉积物浓度。这个后续基金项目的目标是检查和定义该技术商业开发的全部潜力，最有可能的是通过将我们的代码和例程集成到IVS3D的Fledermaus中，该公司是处理和显示3D时变数据集的世界领导者之一。IVS3D是本申请的项目合作伙伴，市场和商业开发分析的全部路线将由TechnologyfromIdeas（作为合作伙伴包括在项目中）进行，他们是利兹大学商业和企业中心签约的独立技术转让咨询公司。他们将提供与该技术潜在商业化相关的全面市场评估和报告。

All natural water flows on the Earth's surface transport sediment (including muds, sands and silts), both along their beds and also suspended within the flow. Sediment transport and deposition result in a wide scale of features from the smallest-scale sand ripples to the largest river deltas and submarine sediment fans. Additionally, understanding the transport of sediment is vital in assessing the fate of pollutant particles in many environments and in a range of industrial applications, such as the erosion and transport of sediment around engineering structures, for instance around bridges and sub-sea installations and during dredging operations. In order to better understand the transport and deposition of sediment in the natural environment, and thus feed this into environmental management strategies (and the meeting of the water framework directive), we require methods that will allow us to measure the shape, or morphology, of the bed (sea bed, lake bed, river bed) surface and measure the transport of sediment. Recent years have seen astonishing progress in the development of multibeam echo sounding (MBES) systems, which use an array of echo-sounder beams to measure the form of the surface at the base of water flows (such as the bed of oceans or rivers) at a very high accuracy (down to millimeters in vertical precision). These instruments use the reflection of sound from the bed to measure the depth of the fluid, and hence construct detailed maps of the bed sediment surface. These instruments allow us to view the bottom of rivers and oceans as if all the water had been slowly drained, and the depositional form left untouched and perfectly displayed. This technique has generated a step change in how we can view the Earth's surface, which depositional forms are present and how we may interpret them and such high-resolution surveys also allow us to look at the change in shape at different time periods, and thus assess changing sediment volumes in time, in response to both human impacts and natural changes.Under a recently completed NERC Partnership Grant the applicants, with Project Partners RESON, have developed a methodology using MBES for concurrently quantifying bathymetry and the concentrations and fluxes of suspended sediment within the water column, using information contained in the acoustic returns derived from the passage of the acoustic sound beams through the water column. We have developed a suite of processing codes and software that conducts the analysis of these vast data sets and have assembled a set of calibrations for converting the acoustic returns into quantifiable sediment concentrations. The goal of this follow on fund project will be to examine and define the full potential for the commercial exploitation of the technique, most likely through the integration of our codes and routines within IVS3D's Fledermaus, one of the world leaders in the processing and display of 3D time-varying datasets. IVS3D are project partners in this application and the full route to market and commercial exploitation analysis will be conducted by TechnologyfromIdeas (included in the project as partners), who are an independent technology transfer consultancy contracted by the University of Leeds Business and Enterprise Centre. They will provide full market assessments and reports related to the potential commercialisation of the technology.