USACE Surveys: the latest depth data for US inland waters
Official nautical charts can't always keep pace with how quickly conditions change in US inland waterways, especially in areas where the bottom shifts due to weather or river dynamics. That's exactly where USACE Surveys come in. Aqua Map overlays more than 120.000 US Army Corps of Engineers surveys directly onto your charts, integrated and updated weekly, so you can see the most current depth picture available for complex or shifting channels.
USACE Surveys require an active Master subscription.
Where the data comes from
USACE districts across the country are responsible for regularly surveying the inland navigation channel system, running depth surveys and publishing them as quickly as possible, particularly in areas prone to frequent change. Aqua Map's USACE integration is built to get that data in front of captains as soon as it's available, overlaying it on the official chart so you can better judge risk and plan your route through tricky stretches with more confidence.
One thing worth knowing: while every USACE district is responsible for uploading its surveys to the eHydro database promptly, upload speed varies district by district. Some publish new surveys within days, while others have taken several weeks. Aqua Map pulls in whatever is available in eHydro, so the freshness of the data you see partly depends on how quickly each district uploads.
Reading the survey colors
USACE surveys appear as depth areas in bright, easy-to-read colors, ranging from dark red (very dangerous, typically below 3 feet) through to blue (above 15 feet), along with individual spot soundings. You'll find the full color scale on the USACE Settings page.
Aqua Map's USACE layer integrates surveys going back to the late 1990s, right up to the most recent data available, and always displays the newest survey on top wherever coverage overlaps.
USACE Settings
You'll find USACE Settings from the main Settings page, where you can configure exactly how this data displays.
At the top, a switch turns USACE data on for your charts.
Below that, you'll find a set of display options.
One important note here: these are the same settings Route Planner uses to calculate safe navigable areas, with the exception of the fading setting, which Route Planner doesn't factor in.
- Display USACE turns the overlay on or off. If you switch the overlay off but leave USACE functionality itself on, the app keeps updating data in the background, so it'll be current whenever you turn the display back on. Switch the functionality off entirely, and updates stop altogether.
- Select max age filters surveys by how recent they are: "All" (no filter), "3yr" (nothing older than 3 years), "1yr" (nothing older than 1 year), or a custom number of months of your choosing.
- Enable fading makes older surveys progressively more transparent on the map, giving you a quick visual sense of a survey's age at a glance. You can always get the exact survey date by tapping directly on the depth data.
