Bathymetry Survey

Overview

Thirty minutes with a specialist to scope your depth survey — then a quote for the real thing.

How this works, in four steps:

1. You book this call. The $50 is the specialist's time, not the survey.
2. You talk through what you actually need — a bay, a marina, one shoreline, or the whole lake — and what you want to learn from it.
3. Lake Pulse sends you a written quote for the job, scoped to that conversation.
4. If you go ahead, you pay Lake Pulse, Lake Pulse pays the pilot, and the results land in your lake's portal with insights attached.

You are not buying a survey for $50. You are buying the half hour that stops you from paying for the wrong survey.

What problem does this solve for our lake?

Almost every lake management decision that involves volume needs a depth map, and most lakes are working from one drawn decades ago or from nothing at all. Bathymetry underpins more than people expect. Water volume determines nutrient concentration and residence time. Sediment accumulation tells you where a lake is filling in and how fast. Dredging volume — and therefore dredging cost — cannot be estimated without it. Navigation hazards, habitat structure, and the basins where anoxia develops all come off the same survey. Most of the Toolbox is deliberately DIY — you collect the sample, you mount the sensor, and you keep the cost down by doing the easy part yourself. Flying a survey is where that stops being true. A lakefront owner in Minnesota cannot fly his own mission, and a self-serve checkout that asks him to draw a polygon and enter a card number is a good way for both of us to get it wrong. Acreage alone does not price a job. Flight conditions, shoreline complexity, permissions, water clarity, time of season, and what you actually want out of the data all move the number, sometimes by a multiple. So we price it the way it should be priced: talk first, quote second.

What's included?

• A 30-minute scheduled call with a Lake Pulse drone specialist
• A working scope for your survey — area, objectives, season, and what the deliverables should be
• A written quote for the survey itself, following the call
• Guidance on whether you need the whole lake or a single basin, which is usually the largest cost lever
• If you proceed: a licensed pilot arranged and paid by Lake Pulse, so you deal with one party rather than sourcing an operator yourself
• Deliverables loaded into your lake's portal with Boathouse interpretation, not a folder of raw imagery

What's not included

• The survey. This listing is the scoping call only — the flight is quoted after it.
• A price you can predict from acreage alone. That is precisely why the call exists.
• Sediment chemistry. A depth map tells you how much material is there, not what is in it — pair it with the sediment phosphorus tests.
• Pilot sourcing on your side. Lake Pulse contracts and pays the operator.
• Permits or permissions where your state, lake district, or a marina requires them, though the specialist will tell you what applies
• Guaranteed flight dates. Weather and season decide.

Requirements

• Access for the survey vessel or aircraft, and a launch point if the survey is boat-based
• A rough idea of what you want to learn. You do not need technical specifics — that is the specialist's job — but "we think the north bay is filling in" is a much better starting point than "we want a drone survey."
• A Plus, Lake Admin, or PRO subscription to have the resulting deliverables loaded into your Lake Pulse account
• Book the call. This listing is a scheduled conversation with the Lake Pulse Boathouse, not a purchase of the survey itself.