HYDRO 2026 Conference

The 'Hydrospatial 2026 Conference' was held 23-26 March 2026 in Wellington, New Zealand.

HYDRO is the premier conference event for the hydrographic community in the region, bringing together hydrographic and cartographic practitioners, equipment providers and related attendees from industry, government and defence. As well as practicing professionals from within the region the conference draws industry from across the world. Further, the event sponsors attendance from University students, ensuring engagement with the future generation of professionals in the community.

Facilitated by the Australasian Hydrographic Society, this year’s conference theme was 'Shaping the Future of Marine Discovery' allowing presentations and discussions on a range of topics including future technology, the likely impact and implementation of S-100, updates on major activities in region, education and training and much more.

This year IIC Technologies Managing Director Oceania David Crossman and Operations Manager Takhou Law hosted a booth and provided two presentations, the first being on training and education and the second being on S-100 and how each of these areas will shape the future of marine discovery.

In the first presentation a comparison was undertaken of the regional situation for ‘Recognised’ hydrographic education and Certification and how the situation has changed from HYDRO 2022; notably now that the IIC Academy is in its 5th delivery of its annual IBSC Recognised S-5B Hydrographic Survyeor Program and 5th delivery of its S-8B Marine Geospatial (cartography) Programs. Incredibly these Programs, combined with IIC’s delivery of the KHOA IBSC Capacity Development Programs, have trained approx. 99 students on S-5B Hydrographic Surveyor Program with 48+ from Asia Pacific Nations and 121 students on the S-8B Marine Geospatial Program, with 67 students being from Asia Pacific Nations. In addition to this IIC have trained a further 126 students from Asia Pacific Nations on geospatial fundamentals, hydro software and equipment.

The second presentation highlighted the benefits of the implementation of S-100, the realities and complexities faced by National Authorities’ in achieving the roll-out of their S-100 responsibilities and provided a number of regional and interesting Projects undertaken by IIC. These examples included analysis, pilot studies and a major Bathymetric Data Base transformation project for Land Information New Zealand; S-104 Water Level, S-111 Current, S-122 Marine Protected Areas and AutoChart production for the Australian Hydrographic Office, and S-129 Under Keel Clearance Management system development for the Canadian Coast Guard.

The HYDRO conference is an excellent forum to share knowledge, information, network and to talk business and collaboration. Most attendees are long standing professional colleagues and friends making the tone of the meeting fun, relaxed and professional.