Three Forms of Surveying

· 2 min read
Three Forms of Surveying


There are many different types of surveys but three of the more commonly used ones are topographical surveying, land surveying and underground utilities surveys. Exploring and understanding the different types or surveys and surveying is easy when you understand how.

Topographical Surveys or Topo surveying

Topographical Surveying may be the study and measurement of the Earth's surface. This can reveal what natural or man-made geographical features exist in an area, large or small, the contours and shapes of the features themselves and even vegetation and the influence of human presence. The thing of all that is to make a three-dimensional map.

To be  https://surveyingserviceslondon.co.uk/best-utility-surveys-london/  to provide this type of accurate detail of the many levels and contours of the land, aerial surveys are conducted, and then at walk out survey teams with portable surveying equipment establish vertical and horizontal control points to verify accuracy. In today's world the data is collected and generated electronically.

Fed with the data, computers combine distances, angles, and elevations and produce pictures, using contour lines, hypsometric tints and relief shading.

Land Surveys and surveying

Land Surveying is the measurement and accurate determination of the three dimensional positions of varied points on a terrain. The purpose of this is generally to find out boundaries. Surveyors produce land maps marking out areas of private, communal or government ownership limits. That is constantly being done when there are serious property rights disputes or changes are planned for the region, such as for example for sub-dividing properties, new residential or town-planning layouts, when roads or other engineering structures are planned, or for the determination of ancient boundaries for historical or archaeological purposes.

Underground Utilities Surveys (electricity, Gas, Water and Television)

Underground Utilities Surveying has to be just about the most tricky and difficult forms of exploration. Surveyors need to determine what is underground and can't be seen. Before any development may take place it must be discovered what, if anything lies beneath the ground. These may be drains, electrical or gas cables, sinkholes, water pipes or water pockets or buried tanks.

The first level of exploration would be to collect every drawing, plan or little bit of electronic data available for the area. This is often not totally accurate, but gives a concept of what installations were located in the immediate area.
The next level involves picking out visible features, such as for example manholes, inspection hatch covers, meters, electrical poles, etc. Straight lines showing the shortest distance between them are drawn, which narrows down the search. However these lines cannot always be totally relied on as rocks along with other underground barriers could cause deviations, and sometimes the pipes or cables don't run from the centre of each inspection element to another, but slightly to 1 side or the other.

An indirect survey involves the most recent technology, such as for example radar that penetrates the bottom, X-rays, and frequency resonance. If uncertainty still persists, the last step is drilling or digging potholes at regular intervals to confirm any of the data collected by the above methods.