Towards 2020 : critical developments in land surveying in 60 years
Coutts, Brian & Malcolm McCoy
The surveying profession has undergone extensive changes in all aspects technical, regulatory and institutional in the 60 years since the early 1950s. Optical theodolites and steel bands slowly gave way to electronic measurement, firstly as large cumbersome instruments but eventually leading to total stations; computing moved from natural trigonometrical tables, logarithms and mechanical calculators to electronic handheld computational aids almost overnight; geodesy and astronomy became satellite positioning; imagery moved from film to digital and advanced from airborne to include satellite; university programmes have become ubiquitous throughout the world; governments have moved to recognise the importance of three dimensional location; and digitisation has changed the way surveyors work and interact. The practice of surveying in both the government and private sector has altered significantly and due to the new technologies the number of people required to do the work has decreased enormously. Do these changes that have taken place raise questions as to what surveyors are, how they define themselves and what they do? If so, how does the surveying profession respond.
Event: FIG Working Week 2012 : Territory, environment, and cultural heritage
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