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Electronic Navigational Charts

+$3.6 Million in FY 2002

(part of NOAA's Marine Transportation System Initiative)

The Challenge of 21st Century Navigation

NOAA is requesting an increase of $3.6 million for Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC) to provide the U.S. Marine Transportation System (MTS) with accurate and timely charting information for safe and efficient navigation. The ENC is fundamental to NOAA's systems approach to navigation services in which charts are integrated with real-time positioning and water level data. Thus, ENCs provide the mariner a far more complete and accurate picture of the waterway than does a traditional paper chart. NOAA's proposal to expand and enhance ENC coverage is a critical component of the Marine Transportation System Initiative, and it specifically addresses recommendations made in the 1999 MTS Report to Congress to support MTS users with high-accuracy navigation information.

As the world's leading trading nation, the United States's future depends on the quality of our port infrastructure and our ability to deliver goods efficiently, safely, and cost-effectively.

New funding in FY 2002 will enable NOAA to address MTS recommendations to:

• expand coverage to 200 ENCs of our 40 major port and harbor areas;
• incorporate the latest hydrographic and shoreline survey information into the ENC; and
• enhance the ENC with high resolution depth information and large-scale source data.

The funds will support new ENC construction (primarily through private-sector contracts) and provide for the continued maintenance and quality assurance of completed ENCs. The ENCs adhere to the internationally accepted and non-proprietary S-57 format, and NOAA plans to offer them via the Internet to all users. The funding will also support efforts to build a complete, quality-controlled digital bathymetric data set of U.S. waters using the most up-to-date hydrographic survey data available. While central to compiling and maintaining the ENC chart suite, it will also assist in developing hydrodynamic, water quality, and ecosystem models to assess the Nation's coastal environment.

National Ocean Service (OR&F)		FY 2002 Change $ in millions
Navigation Services
Mapping & Charting
Electronic Navigational		$3.6
Total Change from FY 2001		$3.6

Each year the MTS:

• Contributes more than $742 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product.
• Employs more than 13 million people.
• Transports 134 million ferry and 5 million cruise ship passengers.
• Supports 11,000 commercial fishing vessels.
• Accommodates 78 million recreational boaters.
• Moves more than 2 billion tons of freight, including 95 percent of U.S. foreign trade.
• Projected to double by 2020, this waterborne commerce is pushing the limits of our aging MTS infrastructure.

Recent advances in navigation technology are key to maximizing the potential of the MTS infrastructure. The Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS), which uses satellites for precise vessel positioning, has revolutionized onboard navigation systems to give mariners highly accurate location data. But, in many cases, the DGPS position is more accurate than the surveying technology that was used originally to put the soundings and features on the traditional nautical chart. This is often the cause of the "ship on the pier" situation, where the vessel tied up at the pier appears on the navigation system to be on the pier rather than alongside. Mariners need high-accuracy electronic chart data to fuel their real-time navigation display systems for collision and grounding avoidance and "just-in-time" delivery routing practices.

Safety and Efficiency

NOAA's ENC proposal builds upon existing capabilities to solve this problem and integrate its decision support tools - high-accuracy ENCs, precise GPS positioning, and real-time water level, current and weather data - to support a safe and profitable waterways system. As vessels plying U.S. waterways grow in size and number, the margin of safety between ships and the seafloor is decreasing and poses significant risk, particularly as nearly half of all goods shipped are petroleum products or other hazardous materials. To the shipper, just a few more inches of draft can mean additional thousands or even millions of dollars of extra cargo carried. Knowing more precisely where a vessel is helps the mariner to maximize use of limited channel depths safely in changing weather and water conditions.

ENCs are essentially a database of chart features that can be intelligently processed and displayed by electronic charting systems. When combined with input from other sources such as DGPS and real-time oceanographic data, the system is able to warn of hazards to navigation and situations where the vessel's current track will take it into danger. The U.S. Coast Guard is developing an Automated Identification System that relies on the ENC to help track and manage vessel movement. The utility of the ENC database extends beyond navigation; for example, it can also support marine geographic information systems for coastal management.

Why NOAA?

NOAA is the national authority for nautical charts, marine tides and water levels, shoreline and positioning, and has a statutory responsibility to chart the Nation's coastal waters for transport and movement of goods and services. ENCs provide much more precisely positioned features than paper charts, and the integration of NOAA's other navigation services with ENCs addresses the mariner's need for technologically advanced and capable systems to navigate safely and efficiently throughout the U.S. MTS.

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