Applications include bathymetry, substrate classification, studies of aquatic vegetation, fish, and plankton, and differentation of water masses.
Scientific echosounder equipment is built to exacting standards and tested to be stable and reliable in the transmission and receiving of sound energy under the water.
Features of modern digital scientific echosounder technology include: Specially written software is available for analysis of hydroacoustic data for assessment of underwater physical and biological characteristics.
Data collected with a scientific echosounder can be analyzed for the presence, abundance, distribution and acoustic characteristics of such variables as: depth (bathymetry), bottom substrate class (e.g., sand, mud, rock), submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV), and water column scattering (fish and plankton).
More recently, the acoustic data collected has been valuable in underwater habitat assessment and classification for the variables; seabed type (e.g. rock, mud, sand) and submersed aquatic vegetation and algae - with the appropriate software.