WHAT DO LAND SURVEYORS DO?

Land surveying is the measurement and mapping of environment, using specialized equipment and technology. Basically, land surveyors work with engineers and architects to produce descriptions of surface features. When your land is being surveyed by these professionals, you will be able to get to know the exact measurements and boundaries of your land area. The main function of the Land Surveyors is to measure and map the earth’s surface. These surveyors specialize in multitude of positions such as photogrammetric surveying, boundary surveying, construction surveying and hydrographic surveying (Source: Quora).

What is the role of a land surveyor during road construction?

In the construction of a roadway there would be two different kinds of surveyors: a land surveyor, and a construction surveyor or engineer. A land surveyor is a licensed professional who is allowed to certify legal boundaries by the use of surveying technology. In the case of road construction, a land surveyor would determine by using his instruments the boundaries of the right of way and establishing the appropriate markers as monuments to show others the legal boundaries.

A construction surveyor or engineer, who does not need a license as he is not defining boundaries, can then come in behind the land surveyor and lay out the roadway within the boundaries set by the land surveyor. He would use the monuments set by the land surveyor as control points to do the layout of the roadway. In addition the construction surveyor would layout the cuts and fills for grading, set the center lines of the roadway and other features for the following construction crews to do their work (source: Quora).

Why is GPS used for land surveying?

The precision is sub-millimeter at current technology. It is super precise. But the truth is, in the US at least, it’s not used for boundary survey. For road and construction it’s helpful, and non legal maps. But, deed description are the legal boundaries and they are written word and do not contain GPS coordinates, they are too old. But many countries are now using it. And I assume you could write a deed description with GPS coordinates. But that wouldn’t be a survey, you would have to already know the boundary in order to describe it in GPS coordinates.