Mississippi River Hydro Survey

KC District Lakes Hydro Survey

Missouri River Hydro Survey

Ohio River Harbor Dredge Survey

Red River of the North

Standing Bear Bridge

Vermillion-Newcastle Bridge

Weatherby Lake

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

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Mississippi River Hydrographic Surveys

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District

The Rock Island District of the Corps of Engineers engaged Eisenbraun and Associates to perform hydrographic surveys of extensive reaches of the Mississippi River between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Ft. Madison, Iowa.  The purpose of the survey was to fulfill the mission of complete topographic coverage of the Mississippi River floodplain.  The above water portion of the floodplain mapping was completed using airborne LiDAR and much of the channel bathymetry was previously surveyed with automated hydrographic survey systems.  The intention on this project was to survey the gap areas not currently mapped.  Some navigation channel survey work was required, but most of the work was in backwater areas and side channels that had challenging accessibility.  Additional project requirements included locating and surveying the condition of submerged wing dams throughout the project area.  In total, the project encompassed the survey of approximately 66,000 acres of backwater and side channels and 909 wing dams located throughout 13 pools on the Mississippi River and two pools on the Illinois Waterway.   Eisenbraun and Associates utilized four fully-automated shallow water hydrographic survey vessels working simultaneously for more than six solid months to accomplish the field work.  Extensive planning was conducted prior to mobilization.  Using ArcGIS and HYPACK software, 773 parcels were analyzed and survey transects laid out for each for use by our hydrographic surveyors in the field.  The approximate location of all 909 wing dams was also mapped to aid in their location in the field.   Aerial photography and navigation charts were also provided as background options for our on-board computer systems.  Horizontal positioning of the survey vessels was accomplished using a Trimble 5800 or R8 GPS receiver running in Real Time Differential mode using WAAS as a real time DGPS correction service.  Control was tied to NGS monuments throughout the project area.  Water surface elevations were obtained from the gages maintained by the USACE along the river and coordinated for each survey reach with the HYPACK software.  ODOM CVM fathometers with continuous digital strip chart recorders were used for the soundings.  To further document the survey, each crew used a Ricoh Caplio 500SE GPS-enabled digital camera to capture views of the areas being surveyed.  The GPS cameras enabled us to georeference the photos for use in KMZ files and ESRI geodatabases later provided to the Corps.  Each photo was digitally stamped with date, time, and latitude/longitude.   The massive amounts of hydrographic survey data that were collected throughout the course of this project were provided to the Corps of Engineers on several external hard drives.  The project was successfully completed and delivered two months ahead of schedule.