Waterford Harbour
Cuan Phort Láirge
Overview
Waterford Harbour is situated in Co. Waterford on the south east coast of Ireland. The harbour area can be defined from the fishing port of Dunmore East on the west side of the harbour to Hook Head in Co. Wexford to the east. Just inside the mouth of the harbour is Creadan Head, in the lee of which are a series of beaches and tidal flats as far north as Passage East.
Two of the ‘Three Sisters’ (Rivers Barrow and Suir) enter the sea at Waterford Harbour with Waterford city defining the upper limits of the harbour. The third, the River Nore joins the River Barrow further inland.
The sheltered harbour at Waterford is used by shipping and cargo, recreation and fishing vessels and dates back to Viking days in the late 9th century.
Location of Waterford Harbour in Co. Waterford on the south coast of Ireland.
INFOMAR Survey History
In 2007, survey coverage was achieved over a large area of the seabed off the Waterford coast. The Celtic Voyager mapped the area from off Dungarvan Bay in the west to the Saltee Islands in the east. The overall area covered by the survey was 714 km 2.
Coverage from the survey leg of Waterford Harbour and Approaches to date. (Click on image for more detailed map)
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Shaded Relief
Overview MBES shaded relief image of the seabed surveyed during the CV07_02 leg off the Waterford coast. (Click on image for more detailed map)
Detailed MBES shaded relief image of the seabed off Hook Head at the mouth of Waterford Harbour. Interesting features in this area of seabed include the sediment filled channel offshore of the harbour. Shallow seismic data shows that sediment infill is often grater than the 8 metres penetration achieved by the pinger. The nature of the data also indicates that the infill is coarse in nature, perhaps gravel. Also visible is a ridge which runs rougly north to south, southwest of the Hook. The feature is roughly 7.5 km long and is possibly a lateral moraine from glaciers in the last ice age. A similar feature is seen to the east, south of Dunabrattin Head. North of this feature is a smaller channel feature that has been interpreted as a possible continuation of a fault mapped in the onshore geology. (Click on image for more detailed map)
Detailed MBES shaded relief image of the seabed off Brownstown Head, west of the mouth of Waterford Harbour. Evidence for folding and faulting can be found by closer examination of the bedding planes of the rock outcrops. (Click on image for more detailed map)
Detailed MBES shaded relief image of the seabed off the Great Saltee Island showing large-scale, symmetrical sand waves with sinuous and some biforcated crests. This seabed feature indicates that sediments are being transported in the area, probably by tidal currents.The wavelength of the sand waves is up to 260 metres and are laterally continuous for up 4 kilometres, perhaps longer as multibeam coverage finishes. Amplitudes of 4 metres for these sand waves have been measured from shallow seismic data from the area. (Click on image for more detailed map)
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Backscatter
Overview MBES backscatter image of the seabed surveyed during the CV07_02 leg off the Waterford coast. The dark areas correspond mainly to rock outcrops and the grey areas east of Dungarvan, around the mouth of Waterford Harbour and southeast of the Hook indicate sediment covering the seafloor, probably sand. (Click on image for more detailed map)
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Shallow Seismic
Image of shallow seismic pinger data collected over the sand wave area seen above. The distance between fixes in blue is 200 metres and the vertical distance between the red lines is 8 metres. This image shows the clear symmertical shape of the ripples and the amplitude is around 4 metres. (Click on image for more detail)
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Seabed Classification
The classification of the multibeam dataset from the Waterford coast resulted in the creation of a 5 class classification divided into Rock, Rock and Coarse Gravel, Gravel and Coarse Sand, Coarse to Medium Sand and Medium to Fine Sand.
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Seabed Classification Chart for Waterford Harbour and Approaches.(Click on image for more detailed map)
Further information about the classification process can be found in the Data Processing section.
For a more detailed .pdf chart of the seabed classification of Waterford Harbour and Approaches click here
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INFOMAR in Google Earth
To view and navigate around the Waterford Harbour Lidar dataset in Google Earth, click here
To view additional datasets in Google Earth please click here
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Data Access
Full details outlining the process to gain access to datasets for the bay above or all INFOMAR data can be found in the INFOMAR | Data page of this website.
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