Study on presentation of navigational information for support of safety of a ship by GIS

The safety of ships underway is essential for the prevention of marine disasters. The main causes of marine disasters are collision and stranding. Stranding most often occurs in shallow water along coasts. Accurate information concerning water depth is very important to prevent stranding. In the present paper, we propose a method for the effective presentation of water depth information using GIS to prevent stranding. The presentation of water depth information was conducted in Osaka Bay. The results indicated that navigational information using GIS is valuable to navigation officer handling in shallow waters.