Continental shelf

In Portugal, following the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the “Estrutura de Missão para a Extensão da Plataforma Continental" (EMEPC) was created. This is a work group focused on investigating the seafloor and presenting a proposal for the extension of the Portuguese Continental Shelf, with one of the objectives of EMEPC being the knowledge of geolog-ical and hydrographic features of the seafloor, as for having support for this proposal.
This way, in a cooperation of the Hydrographic Institute, the hydrographic division of this institute performs the hydrographic surveys in the areas of interest for the EMEPC proposal. The institute not only assures the acquisition of data, but also the processing and validation of all hydrographic data in compliance with the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) standards.
The Hydrographic Institute also has an Bathymetric Information Database System that allows the integration, in a systematic way, of all existing information with the data acquired during the hydro-graphic surveys.

The video presented here, published by EMEPC, shows the participation of the Hydrographic Institute in this project, with the hydrographic surveys on board NRP “D. Carlos I” and NRP “Almi-rante Gago Coutinho”, and the acquisition of the dynamic positioning system.