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 simple when you understand how.

Topographical Surveys or Topo surveying

Topographical Surveying is the study and measurement of the Earth's surface. This may reveal what natural or man-made geographical features exist within 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 produce a three-dimensional map.

To be  Great post to read  to provide this kind of accurate detail of the various levels and contours of the land, aerial surveys are conducted, and then at ground level survey teams with portable surveying equipment establish vertical and horizontal control points to confirm accuracy. Nowadays the data is collected and generated electronically.

Fed with all the current 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 regions of private, communal or government ownership limits. That is constantly being done whenever 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 needs to be probably the most tricky and difficult forms of exploration. Surveyors have to determine what is underground and can't be seen. Before any development can take place it has to be discovered what, if anything lies under the ground. These may be drains, electrical or gas cables, sinkholes, water pipes or water pockets or buried tanks.

The first degree of exploration would be to collect every drawing, plan or little bit of electronic data designed for the area. This is not totally accurate, but gives an idea of what installations were situated in the immediate area.
Another 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 can cause deviations, and sometimes the pipes or cables don't run from the centre of each inspection element to the next, but slightly to one side or the other.

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