Abstract An estimate of the effort needed to survey some arbitrary area is a critical part of the planning efforts of any hydrographic office. We develop a simple, analytic model to estimate full coverage of an arbitrary seafloor area based on a fixed angular swath system such as a multibeam echosounder. This model incorporates one tuneable parameter to account for the overall efficiency of survey execution. We had expected this parameter to be strongly tied to seafloor complexity and thus regionally consistent; it was not. In fact, we could discern no strong relationship between this parameter and any variable investigated, including region, roughness, variability, depth, or survey size. We use this tuned model, including an estimate of uncertainty, to develop a model for survey effort, and apply the model to all of the U.S. waters. Accounting for areas already surveyed to modern standards, we calculate that we have surveyed 44% of the U.S. waters to modern standards by area, but only 18% by level of effort. To survey the remaining area to modern standards would take 12 million linear nautical miles of survey, or approximately 177 years of a single platform running continuously at typical survey speeds.

中文翻译：

---

我们完成了吗？海底调查工作水平的经验估计器 - 包括对美国水域全面调查的估计

摘要 对调查任意区域所需工作量的估计是任何水文办公室规划工作的关键部分。我们开发了一个简单的分析模型来估计基于固定角度条带系统（例如多波束测深仪）的任意海底区域的完全覆盖。该模型结合了一个可调整的参数来说明调查执行的整体效率。我们曾预计该参数与海底复杂性密切相关，因此具有区域一致性；不是。事实上，我们看不出该参数与调查的任何变量（包括区域、粗糙度、变异性、深度或调查规模）之间没有很强的关系。我们使用这个经过调整的模型，包括对不确定性的估计，为调查工作开发一个模型，并将该模型应用于美国的所有水域。考虑到已经按照现代标准进行调查的区域，我们计算出我们已经按区域按照现代标准对美国水域进行了 44% 的调查，但按努力程度仅调查了 18%。按照现代标准对剩余区域进行勘测将需要 1200 万线性海里的勘测，或者以典型勘测速度连续运行的单个平台大约需要 177 年。