Applications for GIS in Land Surveying

Perspective from a small boundary only surveying company.

One very useful application of GIS for me has been taking the LiDAR and DEM data available from the state and being able to look for evidence of old road beds without the impediment of ground cover.  Sometimes, they will just jump out at you from the DEM, but were nearly impossible to see on the ground.

Another is the use of aerial imagery as a background to deed plotting before starting a project.  Depending on the deeds and the images, you can often end up with some pretty good search coordinates before even leaving the office.

Job tracking is one that shouldn't be overlooked either.

Edit:

The above suggestions aren't intensive GIS applications, but they are more easily accomplished in a GIS package than in my CAD package and all of that data accumulates and seems to be more easily stored in a GIS file than in a CAD file.

One of the GISish applications I've relied heavily over the years is using an Access database linked in CAD using an ODBC connection to link the database with our land base maps of each township (basically just tax maps) to plot and track where we have done work over the years. This comes in really handy when starting a new job where I can in seconds see all the various work we've done in an area and grab control from different past jobs to comp out search coordinates for the new mission. The goal being to have real world search coordinates for corners with a foot or two before ever walking out the door. I call it my "GIS Special Sauce'. 

One of the GISish applications I've relied heavily over the years is using an Access database linked in CAD using an ODBC connection to link the database with our land base maps of each township (basically just tax maps) to plot and track where we have done work over the years. This comes in really handy when starting a new job where I can in seconds see all the various work we've done in an area and grab control from different past jobs to comp out search coordinates for the new mission. The goal being to have real world search coordinates for corners with a foot or two before ever walking out the door. I call it my "GIS Special Sauce'. 

Make a topo based on the real estate prices, or on the increase in values.

I use the layers attached to the GIS for viewing aerials, contours, parcel data, roads, environmental data.  I can download the data but not good successful at linking ODBC databases in Bentley Map.  Would like to be able to do what Willawa is doing.  Plus, would like to be able to do some simple queries.

@williwaw That is how I have been using it with Mango Maps - https://mangomap.com/ailana-surveying/maps/79693/ailana-surveying-jobs

@antcrook That's pretty slick. No work on any of the other islands?

One of the GISish applications I've relied heavily over the years is using an Access database linked in CAD using an ODBC connection to link the database with our land base maps of each township (basically just tax maps) to plot and track where we have done work over the years. This comes in really handy when starting a new job where I can in seconds see all the various work we've done in an area and grab control from different past jobs to comp out search coordinates for the new mission. The goal being to have real world search coordinates for corners with a foot or two before ever walking out the door. I call it my "GIS Special Sauce'. 

after I had been in Database and GIS land and geophysics, when I was working up the ladder in land survey I was dumbfounded to find out what you're talking about, as it is rational and sane and a fantastic practice with the tools and software and logistics, was sadly mostly just a pipe dream or not something the people I worked for wanted anything to do with.

GIS needs survey, and survey needs GIS.  it's that simple now.

We've been using GISish program techniques to track jobs and keep areas of interest organized. 

It's great for setting up and managing data for asset inventory surveys. 

Additionally, most tax maps are now GIS products.  Awhile back, I struck up a conversation with a GISP at the county tax office and he showed me the COGO module used to draw deeds and plats and emphasized how hard it was for him to figure out bounds only deeds and others that had no tie to a datum, road intersection, or other physical feature discernable from an orthophoto.  Many of the GIS folks maintaining the tax records will find a plat or deed with an obvious tie, then fit all the surrounding parcels to that.  After that conversation, I decided I'd rather have my surveys be the tax map anchor point and not the floaters.  Even if not required to do so, I slap a couple of State Plane coordinates on boundary monuments. 

Perhaps the answer to, "Why does the tax map show the boundary line going through my house?", is "Because many PLSs don't spend much time considering what others are required to do with their data."

In addition to all of the research, project database and internal tracking mentioned above, there's another application...delivering GIS products to clients. It's becoming more common, especially outside the typical civil design projects that tend to make up a lot of our work.

The energy and utilities sectors in particular like GIS, and we do quite a few projects where all digital deliverables are in shapefile or geodatabase format.

Considering the depth of GIS (able to be reprojected on the fly, easily filtered, can store virtually unlimited attributes, which allow joins and relates to other feature layers, and massive geospatial analysis potential) versus CAD, especially taking into account the fact that metadata is largely nonexistent in CAD deliverables (at least in a standardized/formalized way), and it's not hard to see how from a pure functionality standpoint, a standalone GIS dataset is often more useful - it's certainly more versatile - than the same information buried in a CAD drawing file.

But to develop and maintain a GIS generally goes against the surveying "one-and-done" mentality that sees data as useless once a project is done. Even though we do a lot of GIS work, we still struggle with the concept that data can still be valuable long after we close out a project.

@rover83 A tremendous amount of value is added to our product when we can show the client how we can use our survey data to improve the overall accuracy of their GIS. Taken altogether this survey data can be used to demonstrate that the client’s mapping data meets certain requirements imposed by the Federal government of their minimum mapping accuracy requirements. Taken one step further, it can be utilized to tighten their overall accuracy. Clients love it when you can demonstrate to them that your surveys can solve not only their immediate needs but long term as well. There’s gold in that their data and I’m diggin’ it.

I don't use GIS in land surveying at all because of the way that most are set up with rubber sheeting and the like.  I think of them as a pretty picture, however, when I was working in Municipal Engineering years ago, I helped build one.

I worked under the Municipal Engineer for Willingboro, NJ and spent an entire winter calculating the entire town in cogo, one builder built the entire town, originally known as Levittown, NJ (Levitt also built towns in NY, PA and FLA).  We created an ACad drawing of the whole town and later added water and sewer lines, all with accuracies down to the tenth.  When we were done, I was working on a ten million dollar plan to repave every residential street in town as well as design water and sewer improvements.  With all of the data attached, very little field surveying was needed except for topo of a small number of roads with drainage issues.

@jon-payne That is perfect as my company uses QGIS so I don't have access to some of ArcGIS Pros more advanced features.