Diving Activities Associated With Scuba
See also: Recreational diving, Technical diving, Public safety diving, Scientific diving, Combat diving, and Professional divingScuba diving may be performed for a number of reasons, both personal and professional. Recreational diving is performed purely for enjoyment and has a number of distinct technical disciplines to increase interest underwater, such as cave diving, wreck diving, ice diving and deep diving.
Divers may be employed professionally to perform tasks underwater. Some of these tasks are suitable for scuba.
There are a fair number of divers who work, full or part-time, in the recreational diving community as instructors, assistant instructors, divemasters and dive guides. In some jurisdictions the professional nature, with particular reference to responsibility for health and safety of the clients, of recreational diver instruction, dive leadership for reward and dive guiding is recognised by national legislation.
Other specialist areas of diving include military diving, with a long history of military frogmen in various roles. They can perform roles including direct combat, infiltration behind enemy lines, placing mines or using a manned torpedo, bomb disposal or engineering operations. In civilian operations, many police forces operate police diving teams to perform search and recovery or search and rescue operations and to assist with the detection of crime which may involve bodies of water. In some cases diver rescue teams may also be part of a fire department, paramedical service or lifeguard unit, and may be classed as public service diving.
Lastly, there are professional divers involved with the water itself, such as underwater photography or underwater filming divers, who set out to document the underwater world, or scientific diving, including marine biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and underwater archaeology.
The choice between scuba and surface supplied diving equipment is based on both legal and logistical constraints. Where the diver requires mobility and a large range of movement, scuba is usually the choice if safety and legal constraints allow. Higher risk work, particularly commercial diving, may be restricted to surface supplied equipment by legislation and codes of practice.
Diving activities commonly associated with scuba may include:
| Type of diving activity | Classification |
|---|---|
| aquarium maintenance in large public aquariums | commercial, scientific |
| boat and ship inspection, cleaning and maintenance | commercial, naval |
| cave diving | technical, recreational, scientific |
| diver training | professional |
| fish farm maintenance (aquaculture) | commercial |
| fishing, e.g. for abalones, crabs, lobsters, scallops, sea crayfish, | commercial |
| frogman, manned torpedo | military |
| media diving: making television programs, etc. | professional |
| mine clearance and bomb disposal, disposing of unexploded ordnance | military, naval |
| pleasure, leisure, sport | recreational |
| policing/security: diving to investigate or arrest unauthorized divers | police diving, military, naval |
| search and recovery diving | public safety, police diving |
| search and rescue diving | police, naval, public service |
| spear fishing | recreational |
| stealthy infiltration | military |
| surveys and mapping | scientific, recreational |
| scientific diving (marine biology, oceanography, hydrology, geology, palaeontology, diving physiology and medicine) | scientific |
| underwater archaeology (shipwrecks; harbors, and buildings) | scientific, recreational |
| underwater inspections and surveys (occasionally) | commercial, military |
| underwater photography | professional, recreational |
| underwater tour guiding | professional, recreational |
| underwater tourism | recreational |
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