Seabed Forms and Substrate Mapping of the Nessebar and Pomorie Bays. Southern Bulgarian Black Sea Sector

Abstract

Advancements in remote sensing technology have provided excellent opportunities for mapping the seabed and substrates. Pomorie and Nessebar are ideal for combining single-beam sonar, multi-beam sounding, and drone imaging to map seabed forms and substrates. This paper presents the final stage of the "Multidisciplinary study of Burgas Bay - MidBay" Project. The project aims to create a substrate map and identify different seabed forms. Recent systematic studies have shown that the seabed, beach, and shallowest parts up to 2 meters in depth have undergone changes, primarily observed in the shallowest part of the area. This justifies reconstructing a portion of the Nessebar and Pomorie coast in three dimensions. The article reviews echo sounder and drone research conducted along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, emphasizing the importance of combining successful methodologies and best practices to derive a contemporary digital model of the terrain and raster data for the bays. The primary mission is to accomplish this, utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sonar raster mosaics to locate the boundaries between the various lithological formations. This article aims to map the seabed substrates in the Folk 5 Classes and evaluate the accuracy of UAV-based DSMs, high-resolution orthomosaics, and single-beam echo sounding, essential for researching the most dynamic coastal landforms along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.