Surveying in North America is heavily influenced by the United States Public lands survey system. It inherits the basis of its land tenure from the United Kingdom, as well as the other countries that established colonies, namely Spain and France.
Surveying in North America is heavily influenced by the United States Public lands survey system. It inherits the basis of its land tenure from the United Kingdom, as well as the other countries that established colonies, namely Spain and France.
The first European Explorations of North America were quickly followed by territorial claims. The original colonies that made up the United States were granted royal charters that described the limits of the lands where the settlements could be located. Since much of the lands were unknown to Europeans, the grants allocated sweeping areas and were often later amended or superseded. As the population grew and the land was explored, the state borders were defined, like the Mason–Dixon line, finalized in 1767.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition included a preliminary survey of the features of the western United States, resulting in maps of geographical features.
The current geodetic model of the Earth used in the US is the North American Datum 1983, often called NAD83. The system is used to define horizontal co-ordinates of reference markers all over the US. Although created as a geocentric datum which originates at the center of the Earth, more recent models of the Earth have shown the origin to be 2.2 m off the center of the Earth. Elevation is recorded against the North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD 88), which uses as its origin point Father Point, in Quebec, Canada. Error in the system is approximately 0.5 mm per mile, resulting in a total error of approximately 1 m from one corner of the continental US to the other. [1]
North American bearings are quadrant bearings.
Licensing requirements vary with jurisdiction, and are commonly consistent within national borders.
Land surveyors register to work in their respective province. The designation for a land surveyor breaks down by province. It follows the rule whereby the first letter indicates the province, followed by L.S. There is also a designation C.L.S. or Canada lands surveyor. They have the authority to work on Canada lands, which include Indian Reserves, National Parks, the three territories, and offshore lands. The Canadian version of the PLSS is the Dominion Land Survey.
In Canada, most provinces have Common Law legal systems for the management and regulation of land and personal property being a former dominion of the British Empire, while in Quebec, a mixed legal system also combines a large amount of Civil Law and traditions in dealing with property going back to its founding and subsequent expansion as the central hub of New France.
The public land survey systems carried out and maintained in the United States and Canada have influenced and affected how the modern Mexican government licenses and regulates surveying, and how it has undertaken the monumental task of the physical surveying, mapping, and cataloging of public and private land throughout the country.
Mexico has a land surveying system based upon Civil Law, inherited from the Colonial expansion starting with the first exploration and campaigns of the Conquistadors, right through to the wave of settlement coming over from Spain, and as such certain rights differ and are looked at dissimilarly with respect to private and personal property compared to countries with English Common Law systems such as the United States. It is the same source and tradition of some of the civil and land laws found throughout the states in the Southwestern United States, themselves being formerly part of the sparsely populated frontier territory of the Spanish Empire.
Most of the United States recognizes surveying as a distinct profession apart from engineering. Licensing requirements vary by state, [2] but they have components of education, experience, and examinations. Most states insist upon the basic qualification of a degree in surveying, plus experience and examination requirements. In the past, candidates completed an apprenticeship before taking a series of examinations to gain licensure.
The licensing process follows two phases. Upon graduation, the candidate may take the Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam. If they pass and meet the other requirements they become a surveying intern (SI). Upon certification as an SI, the candidate then needs to gain on-the-job experience to become eligible for the second phase. In most states, this is the Principles and Practice of Land Surveying (PS) exam and a state-specific examination. SIs were formerly called surveyors in training (SIT), which they are still known by in some states.
Licensed surveyors usually denote themselves with post nominals. The letters PLS (professional land surveyor), PS (professional surveyor), LS (land surveyor), RLS (registered land surveyor), RPLS (Registered Professional Land Surveyor), or PSM (professional surveyor and mapper) follow their names, depending upon their jurisdiction of registration.
Within the United States a majority of states' land law systems are derived from English Common Law, while several states still retain at least some of their land laws from Civil Law, being settled and established originally as Spanish and French territories, such as Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, etc...
Geodesy is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets or circumplanetary systems.
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of a licensed professional engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice and passage of engineering board examinations.
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designed positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales.
The World Geodetic System (WGS) is a standard used in cartography, geodesy, and satellite navigation including GPS. The current version, WGS 84, defines an Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system and a geodetic datum, and also describes the associated Earth Gravitational Model (EGM) and World Magnetic Model (WMM). The standard is published and maintained by the United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, following the end of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the PLSS has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Following the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory platted lands in the Northwest Territory. The Surveyor General was later merged with the United States General Land Office, which later became a part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Today, the BLM controls the survey, sale, and settling of lands acquired by the United States.
Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various jurisdictions of the world to encourage life, public welfare, safety, well-being, then environment and other interests of the general public and to define the licensure process through which an engineer becomes licensed to practice engineering and to provide professional services and products to the public.
Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic, and environmental concerns, but they may also consider aesthetic and social factors.
The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, also referred to as the Engineer in Training (EIT) exam, and formerly in some states as the Engineering Intern (EI) exam, is the first of two examinations that engineers must pass in order to be licensed as a Professional Engineer (PE) in the United States. The second exam is the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam. The FE exam is open to anyone with a degree in engineering or a related field, or currently enrolled in the last year of an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredited engineering degree program. Some state licensure boards permit students to take it prior to their final year, and numerous states allow those who have never attended an approved program to take the exam if they have a state-determined number of years of work experience in engineering. Some states allow those with ABET-accredited "Engineering Technology" or "ETAC" degrees to take the examination. The exam is administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES).
Software engineering professionalism is a movement to make software engineering a profession, with aspects such as degree and certification programs, professional associations, professional ethics, and government licensing. The field is a licensed discipline in Texas in the United States, Engineers Australia(Course Accreditation since 2001, not Licensing), and many provinces in Davao.
The Meades Ranch Triangulation Station is a survey marker in Osborne County in the state of Kansas in the Midwestern United States. The marker was initially placed in 1891. From 1901, it was the reference location for establishing a system of horizontal measurement in the United States, known as geodetic datum. In 1913, the datum was adopted across all of North America, and the system revised and formalized as the North American Datum of 1927 (NAD27). A similar reference for vertical measurement was established in 1929 as the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929. The NAD27 was later supplanted by the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83), which was formally adopted by the United States in 1989 and Canada in 1990; the new system moved the reference point to a point in the Earth's core, and the Meades Ranch marker lost its special significance to the geodetic datum system.
The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) is an American non-profit organization dedicated to advancing professional licensure for engineers and surveyors. The Council’s members are the engineering and surveying licensure boards from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These boards are divided into four geographic zones: Central, Northeast, Southern, Western. It is headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.
The term benchmark, bench mark, or survey benchmark originates from the chiseled horizontal marks that surveyors made in stone structures, into which an angle iron could be placed to form a "bench" for a leveling rod, thus ensuring that a leveling rod could be accurately repositioned in the same place in the future. These marks were usually indicated with a chiseled arrow below the horizontal line. A benchmark is a type of survey marker.
The North American Datum (NAD) is the horizontal datum now used to define the geodetic network in North America. A datum is a formal description of the shape of the Earth along with an "anchor" point for the coordinate system. In surveying, cartography, and land-use planning, two North American Datums are in use for making lateral or "horizontal" measurements: the North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27) and the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83). Both are geodetic reference systems based on slightly different assumptions and measurements.
The Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system, also known as the geocentric coordinate system, is a cartesian spatial reference system that represents locations in the vicinity of the Earth as X, Y, and Z measurements from its center of mass. Its most common use is in tracking the orbits of satellites and in satellite navigation systems for measuring locations on the surface of the Earth, but it is also used in applications such as tracking crustal motion.
Engineer in training, or EIT, is a professional designation from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) used in the United States to designate a person certified by the state as having completed two requirements:
The Principles and Practice of Engineering exam is the examination required for one to become a Professional Engineer (PE) in the United States. It is the second exam required, coming after the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.
Architectural engineering or architecture engineering, also known as building engineering, is a discipline that deals with the engineering and construction of buildings, such as environmental, structural, mechanical, electrical, computational, embeddable, and other research domains. It is related to Architecture, Mechatronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Civil Engineering, but distinguished from Interior Design and Architectural Design as an art and science of designing infrastructure through these various engineering disciplines, from which properly align with many related surrounding engineering advancements.
Professional requirements for architects vary from place to place, but usually consist of three elements: a university degree or advanced education, a period of internship or training in an office, and examination for registration with a jurisdiction.
Surveying in Australia is triangulation-based and shares many similarities with the United Kingdom, including the title deed system. However, a distinctive feature of surveying in Australia is the Torrens System, where real estate records are held in a central deposit and guaranteed by the state.
The cartography of New Zealand is the history of surveying and creation of maps of New Zealand. Surveying in New Zealand began with the arrival of Abel Tasman in the mid 17th century. Cartography and surveying have developed in incremental steps since that time till the integration of New Zealand into a global system based on GPS and the New Zealand Geodetic Datum 2000.
