Who is a surveyor?
A surveyor is a person who demarcates and establishes boundaries of official lands, airspace and water. The role of land surveyors is to develop documents of comprehensive designs and work alongside civil engineers, landscape architect, urban and regional planners. They work both indoors as well as outdoors to prepare legal documents and other reports.
What is a surveyor’s job?
A land surveyor is typically responsible to do the following tasks:
- Measuring angles, directions and distances between points on, below and above the earth’s surface.
- Establish and demarcate clear boundaries of land and water bodies.
- Determining the existence of boundary lines by discovering the previous boundaries
- Using special equipment to determine the exact location of vital features in the survey area after selecting the known points of reference.
- Measure the distances and the directions between points by travelling to the difference locations.
- Preparing plots, maps, reports.
- Verifying the results of the survey and the accuracy of the data
- Description of land for deeds, leases and other legal documents are written by a land surveyor
- Collaborate with the cartographers, construction managers, architect and others
- Presenting the findings to the clients. Government agencies, court etc.
- They gather and interpret the results and then feed it into a Global Positioning System with which detailed maps are then created.
Whenever a property is bought or sold, a surveyor needs to survey the property for legal needs. A land surveyor provides the essential information required for the buying or selling of property and guides the construction and development projects. Surveyors typically work with a crew that consists of a licensed surveyor and trained survey technicians. The group is then generally headed by a party chief who leads the everyday work activities.
What kind of work environments does a land surveyor work in?
A land surveyor spends a lot of time working outdoors irrespective of the weather. Depending on the location of the region, your surveyor would be cutting through ice, walking through mud or spend a considerable amount time inside a storage tank. Land surveyors’ work take them across the globe working in all sorts of different climatic conditions and environments. A surveyor can, however, choose to specialize in one part of the country or go wherever they are led to by their designated work. Places that restrict access to public also allow surveyors to work in such areas, too.
What kind of skills does a land surveyor need to have?
Land surveyors need to have various skills, some of which are mentioned below.
- Communication skills – Land surveyors need to have excellent communication skills to be able to provide clear instructions to their team members and effectively communicate with government officials and clients. The surveyor also needs to have a clear understanding of the instructions and information delivered to him by the architects, construction managers, etc. they also need to communicate clearly, updates if any, to the lawyers and developers.
- Detail-oriented – The work of the land surveyors needs to be precise and accurate. Their measurement should be perfectly accurate and match the measurement benchmarks. Survey documents are accepted as legal documents and need to be as detailed as possible with an error-free input.
- High stamina – Land surveyors are required to work outdoors in various kinds of terrains and under extreme climates. Their work may even need them to walk or stand for hours at the end. In such cases, surveyors need to have high stamina in order to maintain the quality of work.
- Problem-solving skills – Surveyors often are required to fix discrepancies between documents, fix broken equipment, or even device a way to work with minimal or missing available equipment or information.
- Time management – A land surveyor needs to work under tight deadlines and often must maintain an accurate time management system that can help in guiding their team to complete the tasks effectively.
A land surveyor has the ability and required skills to work in a myriad of locations, projects and environments. A licensed surveyor can even certify legal documents and consult with a variety of official and legal professionals. They indeed are an important aspect of any construction activity.
