Environmental baseline surveys are the most comprehensive environmental survey that Fugro offers, in terms of gathering data from sediments, water column and atmosphere. The surveys typically include sediment sampling (for both fauna and physico-chemical parameters) and seabed photography. Fugro Environmental are capable of conducting this type of survey in water depths from the intertidal region down to abyssal depths (3000m).
Environmental surveys are often carried out as part of a wider geophysical survey program and this data is used to design, inform and support the environmental survey. This seabed classification data includes multi-beam echosounder data, side scan sonar, sub-bottom data and acoustic back scatter.
The aim of the environmental baseline survey is to establish the current conditions of the survey area, and set a benchmark against which the further effects of anthropogenic activity can be measured. These surveys are used to inform the environmental statements companies around the world are required to submit as part of the drilling process.
Fugro Environmental owns and operates a wide selection of groundtruthing equipment. This includes equipment such as:
- HD Underwater camera systems
- Low visibility adapted camera systems
- High resolution towed camera systems
- Compact observation ROVs
- Multi-parameter water profilers
- Sediment samplers from 0.05m2 to 0.25m2
- Towed nets for zoo and phytoplankton
- Air diffusion tubes
- Active particle filtration units
- Epibenthic trawls