Acoustics is the most effective way of exploring deep and shallow oceanic water, as well as inland water. Being non-invasive, safe and economical, the wide variety of acoustics tools are used in many applications in ocean engineering, environmental management and mineral exploration projects. Brazil has one of the world?s longest coastline and adjacent territorial waters of about 4.5 million km2 which corresponds approximately to half of the country?s land area. Today Brazilian oceanic area is a major target for oil companies from all over the world because of the recent giant discoveries of the pre-salt. Inland there is over 6500 km of waterways and tens of major dams from hydroelectric power plants. The Brazilian government has started a large program for the evaluation of the marine mineral resources with the REMPLAC project, which aims to determine the potential for different mineral resources along the entire Brazilian coast. During the 12th Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society, held in Rio de Janeiro in August 2011, the Shallow Water Geophysics session, which took place for the first time within the scope of this congress, attracted a total of 25 papers from Brazilian companies and universities. Building on that success Rio Acoustics 2013 will respond to the strong demand for effective tools to investigate the shallow sediment of submerged areas, a region not addressed by deep seismic exploration. Details at http://www.rioacoustics.org/