GIS for potential underwater hazards search and examination (Mobile laboratory of EmerCom of Russia)

The term “potential underwater hazards” (PUH) describes wrecks, space- and aircrafts and their elements, as well as ammunition and parts of equipment, fully or partially submerged in inland waters and territorial seas of the Russian Federation in a result of an accident or dumping, if they contain nuclear materials, poisonous chemicals, explosives and other dangerous materials which may cause a distress situation (Regulation of RF Government, 2002). A special attention to these objects is caused by the potential threat, which may appear either spontaneously (due to development of internal processes in PUH) or after a human activity. This is why the EmerCom of Russia was given a task to organize a Registry of PUH. The Registry is populated with information taken mainly from a safety declaration, which according to the Ruling of the Government of RF must contain details about the geographic position of an underwater object; the basic geographical, meteorological, geological, hydrological and ecological characteristics of the area; the estimation of distress situation risk. Since most of information in the safety declaration have spatial nature, the most adequate information technology to employ is GIS.