Emerging trends in topobathymetric LiDAR technology and mapping

ABSTRACT

This review article delves into the latest advancements and transformative impacts of remotely sensed methods in measuring water depth and underwater topography. It particularly focuses on topobathymetric data acquisition which is crucial for numerous applications including navigation, flood control, coastal erosion, sea-level rise predictions, and mapping, modelling, and monitoring of offshore resources. Traditionally, measuring depths, distribution, and volumes of submerged resources has been challenging due to time, cost, labor, and reliance on sophisticated, mostly airborne technologies. These conventional methods often struggled in remote, hazardous, or shallow water areas. Recent advances in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, especially its miniaturization and integration with unoccupied aerial systems (UAS), have significantly improved the collection of three-dimensional bathymetric data. This progress presents effective solutions for previously faced challenges. Despite these advancements, there's a need for a thorough assessment of the state of LiDAR-based topobathymetric mapping and the impact of the increasing accessibility of UAS in this field. Our systematic review scrutinizes topobathymetric LiDAR technology and research, centering on acquisition platforms and methods in coastal and riverine environments for mapping, planning, monitoring, and inspections. We document the spread of topobathymetric LiDAR research over time, geographically, across disciplines, and in various publication outlets. Utilizing the VOSviewer analytical tool, we conducted a bibliometric keyword-based network analysis, evaluating the distribution of topobathymetric citations, and their bibliographic coupling, co-citation, and co-authorship relationships. Our findings reveal the innovative yet emerging state of UAS applications in topobathymetry and the ongoing reliance on LiDAR technology for 3-D underwater data acquisition. This study provides a fundamental assessment of current trends and developments in coastal and riverine bathymetric applications, highlighting the evolving landscape of remotely sensed methods in underwater topography.

KEYWORDS:

• Topobathymetry
• active remote sensing
• coastal bathymetry
• riverine bathymetry
• airborne
• sonar
• LiDAR

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Morgan Weatherford and John Kirby at the NCDOT for their continued support of our research and Travis Deitz for providing minimal input on a very early stage of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

NGP designed the study, provided guidance for all aspects of the bibliometric analysis, wrote the manuscript and secured funding for the research. MSB conducted the bibliometric analysis and drafted the figures. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

Any of the datasets presented in this manuscript are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) Contract RP2023-038 Demonstrating the capabilities of UAS Topobathymetric LiDAR mapping in support of DOT project planning, monitoring and modelling to Principal Investigator Narcisa G. Pricope at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Topobathymetric sensor acquisition at UNCW Center for Marine Science was funded by a National Science Foundation Major Instrumentation Grant (award # 2215839), Principal Investigator Narcisa G. Pricope; these awards spurred the development of this review paper.