Modern river charting: Inland ENC derived from multibeam survey in Paraguay river

Abstract

Traditionally official cartographic production for Brazilian rivers have been elaborated using hydrographic data mainly collected using singlebeam echosounders. More recently, Brazilian Navy has conducted multibeam surveys, firstly for Amazonas River and more recently for Paraguay River. Meanwhile, new cartographic products specifications have been developed. In the scope of the maritime nautical charts, paper charts have been evolved into electronic navigational charts (ENC), vector data comprising the environment features relevant to navigation. Regarding the river nautical charts, following same tendency, another product specification was created: the Inland ENC, similar to the maritime ENC, but adapted to the fluvial environment. This paper aims to compare an Inland ENC derived from a singlebeam survey, using traditional cartographic approach and another Inland ENC produced directly from multibeam survey data in the Paraguay River, which was chosen as a study area for the first Brazilian Inland ENCs. It is the first time such process was applied to produce Paraguai River charts using official Brazilian Navy data. The results may be applied to establish a methodology for the production of the Paraguay River official Inland ENCs.