Dredging is an excavation activity or operation usually carried out at least partly underwater, in shallow seas or fresh water areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location, mostly to keep waterways navigable. A dredge is a device for scraping or sucking the seabed, used for dredging. A dredger is a ship or boat equipped with a dredge

Modern barges developed from the scow, a craft with a very distinctive hull design. The scow was a flat bottomed, flat sided, and often flat bowed and sterned vessel that was characterized by a "hard chine" or squared bilge. These boxy vessels were utilitarian craft meant to serve the ports, rivers, bays, piers, and even beaches in the largely unimproved Great Lakes from the War of 1812 through the early 20th century. They were an important part of 19th century commerce because they combined large cargo capacity with shallow draught and relatively low costs for construction and operation. Scows carried a variety of rigs (bark, schooner, sloop, or unrigged), but were most often rigged as sloops or schooners. By the late 19th century the sailing scow was well on its way toward obsolescence and the scow hull form was becoming widely used for unrigged barges like those square steel barges that are extensively used today. The first scow barges were of wood and later of steel