Bold Monarch 2008 : Rapid Environmental Assessment utført av FFI-prosjektet POSEIDON

This report describes a Rapid Environmental Assessment, REA exercise, done in cooperation with Bold Monarch 2008. The contents describe methods for data collection and products given too the exercise. The goal for the exercise is to provide high resolution data for the whole area, in such way that the NATO exercise Bold Monarch 08 can accomplished in a safe way. Focus for this NATO exercise was rescue operation for bottoming submarines. With 14 countries participate and 1500 people, the need of good information about the environmental conditions is present. The POSEIDON project and FFI contributions was to map the area in detail. The goal was to give information about every square meter, and provide products about, bathymetry, sediments, backscatter and oceanographically conditions. Already during the collection phase, we saw that the conditions in the most pre bottoming areas were too bad for bottoming. This was reported to the FOHK and most of the bottom areas were moved to areas based on FFI collected data.