Three Types of Surveying
There are many different kinds of surveys but three of the more commonly used ones are topographical surveying, land surveying and underground utilities surveys. Exploring and understanding the various 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 object of all that is to produce a three-dimensional map.
In order to provide this kind of accurate detail of the many 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 info is collected and generated electronically.
Fed with all 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 may be the measurement and accurate determination of the 3d positions of various points on a terrain. The objective of this is generally to find out boundaries. Property Survey Kirkham produce land maps marking out areas of private, communal or government ownership limits. This 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 should be one of the tricky and difficult types of exploration. Surveyors have to determine what is underground and can't be seen. Before any development may 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 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 an idea 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 continually be totally relied on as rocks and other underground barriers can cause deviations, and sometimes the pipes or cables don't run from the centre of every inspection element to the next, but slightly to 1 side or the other.
An indirect survey involves the latest technology, such as 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 verify any of the data collected by the aforementioned methods.