Acoustic technology used to play an important role in Marine environment observation, but with the development of its application, it has also become one of the important means in the measurement of other water bodies. Acoustic chromatography technology, especially the application of 15-88K frequency acoustic chromatography, has also been transferred from estuaries and coasts to surface water, groundwater and other water body measurements.

ATV acoustic tomography cross section flowmeter uses underwater acoustic reciprocal transmission (also known as bidirectional acoustic transmission) to perform acoustic tomography (temperature flow) inversion calculation, and uses Fourier model to reconstruct sound velocity, temperature field and flow field in two dimensions.

Sound waves have superior propagation characteristics in water, and are effective forms of radiation for long-distance transmission of energy and information in surface water. As the water layer, peak surface, internal wave, reflection, scattering, absorption, surface and bottom boundary all have an impact on the propagation, the sound wave carries a large amount of propagation path information in the process of water propagation. By analyzing the frequency, phase, time, multi-path structure and other characteristics of the acoustic signal, a lot of water information can be deduced.