Free | Publicly available
The National Bathymetric Source (NBS) project creates and maintains high-resolution bathymetry composed of the best available data. This project enables the creation of next-generation nautical charts while also providing support for modeling, industry, science, regulation, and public curiosity. Primary sources of bathymetry include NOAA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hydrographic surveys and topographic bathymetric (topo-bathy) lidar (light detection and ranging) data. Data submitted through the NOAA Office of Coast Survey’s external source data process are also included, with gaps in deep water filled through Global Multi-Resolution Topography, a merged model of bathymetry. Different vertical datums and file formats are made available to meet various uses. The BlueTopo folder includes multilayer floating point GeoTIFFs with associated Raster Attribute Tables (RAT) containing elevation, vertical uncertainty, with other quality metrics and source information. Thes[...]