Underwater Forensic Scenes Management: A Diver‐Led Documentation Methodology

ABSTRACT

Subaquatic crime and disaster scenes present extreme physical, perceptual, and operational constraints that profoundly affect observation, documentation, and interpretation. Although such scenes may be central to major criminal investigations or mass fatality incidents, their management remains insufficiently structured within forensic science, with practices still largely oriented toward search and recovery rather than systematic scene documentation. This article proposes a conceptual framework for the management of underwater forensic scenes, structured around four fundamental principles aligned with the Sydney Declaration, and introduces a diver‐centered, structured methodology for documenting underwater scenes. This methodology integrates the assessment of environmental constraints, the diver's training, skills, and experience (TSE), the adaptive selection of documentation techniques, and iterative perception–interpretation–evaluation (PIE) cycles. A multimodal documentation strategy combining photography, video, photogrammetry, 360° imaging, sonar, and virtual scene reconstruction is described in order to address the inherent limitations of each method when used in isolation. The practical applicability of this framework is illustrated through a realistic case study involving submerged vehicle wrecks, demonstrating how complementary recording tools can be combined under constrained conditions to transform fragmented underwater perception into a coherent and shareable digital representation of the scene. By formalizing documentation as a central forensic process and clarifying the epistemic role of the diver‐investigator, this work contributes to the structuring of an emerging field. It provides theoretical and operational foundations for a more rigorous, transparent, and reproducible management of underwater forensic scenes, while also identifying limitations and avenues for future research, training, and institutional integration.