Category Archives: Surveying
Where The Future Is Now
Notes from the second FIG Young Surveyors North America Meeting We came from six countries and 23 states because we were told that we are the future. We traveled to Minneapolis, Minnesota in frigid February to meet each other and figure out what that means. After attending the 2nd FIG Young Surveyors North America Meeting,...
Treasure Hunting and the Treasure Hunt
Editor’s note: The following newspaper article is a view of surveying from the outside that highlights one of the many appealing aspects of surveying that the public might not be aware of. Since its first publication, links to this article rapidly made the rounds of surveying social media; many cite it as a example of...
The Future of Surveying Forum
A broad coalition forms to chart paths forward for the profession. On January 12 in San Diego, California, a taskforce of representatives from the major surveying-affiliated professional associations and end-use constituencies met for the first phase of an ambitious initiative focused on the future of surveying. This is a wonderful opportunity that could yield profound...
Technology: the Bane of Surveying Traditions?
I have been surveying going on 39 years now. It’s a darn good thing I have succeeded, or at least survived in this profession, because I never really learned how to do anything else. Never really wanted to. As I have watched our profession change drastically over that time, mostly driven by technology and the...
2022
The NGS discusses the upcoming national spatial reference framework modernization. Reference framework shift happens. The National Geodetic Survey (NGS)—the federal steward of the National Spatial Reference Framework (NSRS)—is planning a major (if not fundamental) update of the framework. This pending update is common knowledge among geodetic, surveying, and other geospatial communities. Among the information circulating...
Subsidence
Do you know where your control really is? Editor’s note: The earth moves, even if we do not want it to – or we do not perceive that it does. If you are surveyor working in any part of the country your work will be subject to some degree of subsidence or deformation – be...