Nearshore bathymetry data from the Elwha River delta, Washington, August 2019

Uncertainty in the final elevations is derived from the combination of uncertainty in the GNSS positioning and bathymetric sounding measurements. Manufacturer reported accuracy for the differentially corrected vertical positions for the GNSS rover trajectories is 1.5 cm + 1 ppm. Baselines from the GNSS base station were typically less than 5 km, suggesting the vertical accuracy of survey vessel positions to be 2 cm relative to the base station coordinate. Combining the uncertainty in the elevation of the base station coordinates and rover positions yields a total uncertainty in the GNSS-derived survey-vessel positions of approximately 5 cm. Additional uncertainty in the final computed elevations data is related to unmeasured variability in the speed of sound used to compute depths from bathymetric soundings and, thus, are depth-dependent. Based on analysis of all available speed of sound measurements, we estimate uncertainties in the final depth soundings to be 0.6 percent of the water depth. The total vertical uncertainty is calculated using Equation 1: sigmat=sqrt(a^2+(bxd)^2), where sigmat is the total vertical uncertainty, a is the uncertainty of the GNSS vertical position, b is the depth-dependent uncertainty factor (0.006), and d is water depth (International Hydrographic Organization, 2008). Maximum water depths surveyed on this mapping mission are approximately 18 m yielding a maximum total vertical uncertainty of 12 cm. Uncertainty in the vertical positions associated with pitch and roll of the survey vessels is unknown.