Office of Coast Survey
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce
Three Major Efforts Support the Future of NOAA Charts
Three principal elements of the future of NOAA nautical chart production are presented here. These efforts enable ongoing improvements to the quality and detail of the navigational data that NOAA provides, as well as an option for a format to portray that data.
Improving Electronic Navigational Charts
The arrangement or layout of a set of charts is called a scheme ‐ a systematic configuration of chart "footprints".
NOAA is creating a new gridded layout
of rectangularly shaped charts for its electronic navigational chart (NOAA ENC®) product suite. As
new gridded
ENCs are created, a number of improvements to the quality and consistency of the data are being
implemented.
These include providing larger scale (more detailed) coverage in many cases, resolving
discontinuities and
properly "edge-matching" data between adjacent ENC cells by using just 11 standard chart scales. The
use of
standard depth contour intervals is improving consistency between adjacent ENCs, and contours are
being recompiled
in whole metric units. Topographic contours and road networks are also being added in many areas.
More information
is on NOAA Coast Survey's Rescheming and Improving Electronic Navigational Charts web page.
New Options for Paper Nautical Charts
The online
NOAA Custom Chart application enables users
to create their own customized nautical charts directly from the latest official NOAA electronic
navigational chart
(NOAA ENC®) data. The tool outputs Portable Document Format (PDF) files set to the paper size,
scale, and location
selected by the user. Depths can be displayed in meters, feet, or fathoms and there are other
display options, such as
changing the depth at which a shallow water blue tint is applied and the depiction of a "safety
contour" based on a vessel's
draft. More information is on NOAA Coast Survey's NOAA Custom Chart web page.
Ending Traditional Paper Nautical Chart Production
In a November 2019 notice
in the Federal Register,
NOAA announced the sunsetting of its traditional paper and raster nautical chart products.
Cancellation of individual charts
started in 2021 and will be completed by January 2025. Ending traditional chart production will
enable NOAA to devote more
resources to improving the electronic navigational chart (ENC) product suite, which is expected to
grow from the 1700 ENCs
maintained in 2021 to about 7500, higher quality, more detailed ENC cells. More information is
on NOAA Coast Survey's
Farewell to Traditional Nautical Charts web page.