The Shom, heir to the first official hydrographic service in the world (1720), is a public administrative establishment (EPA) under the supervision of the Ministry of the Armed Forces. It is the public operator for maritime and coastal geographical reference information. Its mission is to know and describe the physical marine environment in its relationship with the atmosphere, the seabed and coastal areas, to forecast its evolution and to ensure the dissemination of the corresponding information.
Its research themes cover: sedimentology, bathymetry, geodesy, marine geophysics, oceanography, underwater acoustics, data acquisition and processing, survey qualification, remote sensing, geographical information and decision support.