Thisvolume contains thecollection of papers from the second workshop on Expe- mental Acoustic
Inversion Techniques for Exploration of theShallow Water Environment.
Theworkshopthemefollowedtheoriginalconceptofthe rstworkshop heldinCarvoeiro Portugal in 1999
i.e. to focus on experiments and experimental techniques for acoustic sensing in the shallow
ocean. More than forty leading international scientists were invited to meet in the picturesque
town of St. Angelo on the island of Ischia in June 2004 to discuss progress in the
application of new experimental techniques for exploration and assessment of shallowwater
environments. Acoustic techniques provide the most effective means for remote sensing of ocean
and sea oor processes and for probing the structure beneath the sea oor. No other energy
propagates as ef ciently in the ocean: radio waves and visible light are severely limited in
range because the ocean is a highly conductive medium. However sound from bre- ing waves and
coastal shipping can be heard throughout the ocean and marine mammals communicate acoustically
over basin scale distances.
