Netherlands – Hydrographic services – De levering van hydrografische data

The Netherlands has a treaty obligation to systematically survey and chart the Dutch maritime area hydrographically. This task has been under pressure for some time due to various causes, resulting in not all areas of the North Sea meeting the desired cartographic standard. In the coming years, new hydrographic vessels will be introduced and potentially tasks related to the protection of critical infrastructure in the North Sea will be partially assigned to the hydrographic units, and the units will be deployed for other military and supporting tasks. Both the introduction of new equipment and the assignment of additional tasks will result in even less hydrographic capacity being available for one of the core tasks of the hydrographic vessels, collecting data for safe navigation on the NCP. To be able to partially catch up with the current backlog and to be more flexible in the coming years to deploy the hydrographic units for other (military) tasks, there is a desire to conclude a service agreement with a third party that can take over part of the civil hydrographic tasks.