Surveying, Mapping and GIS

To follow on to my previous post, "Epic Battles: GIS versus Land Surveying?" I have compiled this list of Land Surveying Practice Acts. These are state laws, which govern the practice of land surveying within each jurisdiction, and which define what each jurisdiction views as work to be performed by licensed land surveyors.

• Alabama


• Alaska


• Arizona


• Arkansas


• California


• Colorado


• Connecticut


• Delaware


• Florida


• Georgia


• Hawaii


• Idaho


• Illinois


• Indiana


• Iowa


• Kansas


• Kentucky


• Louisiana


• Maine


• Maryland


• Massachusetts


• Michigan


• Minnesota


• Mississippi


• Missouri


• Montana


• Nebraska


• Nevada


• New Hampshire


• New Jersey


• New Mexico


• New York


• North Carolina


• North Dakota


• Ohio


• Oklahoma


• Oregon


• Pennsylvania


• Rhode Island


• South Carolina


• South Dakota


• Tennessee


• Texas


• Utah


• Vermont


• Virginia


• Washington


• West Virginia


• Wisconsin


• Wyoming

Discussion revolving around a planned, but retracted article on GIS for Professional Surveyor Magazine has led to a lot of interesting discussion, but to me generally reveals a continuing underlying tension and misperceptions between the GIS and Surveying communities.

Adena Schutzberg / All Points Bulletin: Update: State Licensing Board "Censors" GIS Article
James Fee / Spatially Adjusted: "GIS Practitioners as Doing Work Surveyors Should Be Doing"

While these articles post updates and amendments, based on comments by Tom Gibson, Professional Surveyor's editor, which clarifies that the author decided to retract his article, the underlying question of GIS versus surveying and legal jurisdictions still remains.

Some of the comments are telling - with perceptions and suggestions that State Licensing Boards are somehow cracking down in draconian fashion, demanding censorship and attacking GIS practitioners. Tied into this, we had the MAPPS lawsuit (another issue which I believe will resurface at some point), overlap of surveying with photogrammetry, and other issues. Meanwhile, in the surveying community, we still hear "GIS = Get It Surveyed".

I have my own, perhaps unique perspectives and insights, being a GIS practitioner since the late 1980s, as well as a licensed Land Surveyor, and finally, also serving as chair to a State Licensing Board.

Note: Having said this, please note that my comments to follow are my own personal views, and are not to be taken as official statements or in any way representative of our State Licensing Board's views.

For most GIS practitioners, they readily defer to surveyors' knowledge and domain expertise on cadastral issues - matters of how property boundaries are properly dealt with, and so on - and similarly, most surveyors know their limitations when it comes to GIS. However, there still seems to be occasions which give rise to confusion and misperception.

One basic thing that we all need to come into reckoning with is that Surveying and GIS overlap, but that neither is wholly contained within the other, and that each has areas which may additionally be mutually exclusive from the other. Another part of this Venn diagram equation is Photogrammetry - another topic, which has come up often. I have best seen it illustrated as such:


One area of contention is that some states' Practice Acts are very broad in their definition of what constitutes land surveying - e.g. "measurement and determination of any feature on the earth's surface" - which might not be appropriate for the strictest of interpretations. Many everyday GIS efforts could constitute surveying practice under this definition - but is it appropriate?

If one considers typical State laws pertaining to licensure and practice of land surveying, one will see that the primary objective is in protecting the public, it has little to do with protecting the surveying profession.

So what is falls within the purview of licensing boards, and what falls within the definition of land surveying, toward preventing harm? That may vary somewhat from state to state.

But how might the public be harmed by GIS data, as opposed to proper land surveys? Here are some generalized versions of recent tales I've heard:

• A county tax mapping office, where a GIS practitioner "helps" a realtor friend in a bind by preparing a property description based on lot lines in the GIS. Where did those lot lines come from? Combination of digitized paper maps, lines rubbersheeted to apparent fencelines on orthophotos, and so on. The harm? This description brings with it apparent legal connotation, as a representation of lines of ownership. The buyer may be getting a misrepresentation of what the lot's actual extent and location is.


• A municipality orders a homeowner to demolish and remove a brand new addition, based on their perception that it is in violation of setback lines - based on the GIS.

These things can be only be remedied through a proper survey. One definite question that should be asked, is whether litigation or legal action might ever be a possibility. If it's anything relating to or impacting property ownership and use, such as property boundaries, rights-of-way, easements, or things of that nature, one would definitely want reliable, accurate survey data that can hold up in a court of law. Most county GIS systems will not pass this test.

Perhaps there a jurisdictional issue at stake, such as wetlands delineation (where US EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, State Environmental Protection Agencies or others may or may not have jurisdiction, based on whether or not the land in question is a wetlands or not). Given an instance where a wetland may have been filled, drained, or otherwise encroached upon, and where the original physical evidence of plants, hydric soils, and wetlands flags may no longer exist, a surveyor's location of and ties to the wetland biologists' flags is far more likely to hold up to scrutiny, be accurately retraceable in the field, and be defensible in court than GIS data from recreational-grade GPS receivers or other approaches that are occasionally seen in use.

Or a toxic waste spill - whether it impacted adjoining properties or not - and so on. The same circumstance may come into play with other jurisdictional issues, such as taxation and municipal jurisdiction, and other areas.

Is it a specific legal requirement that these types of data be collected by surveyors in these cases? To turn that question around, in these cases it's instead a matter of basic good practice and adequate protection from dispute and liability as to how the locational data is captured.

Not every GIS practitioner has to deal with these things - but some do very much need to be cognizant of it. And certainly GIS practitioners do need to be aware of state Land Surveying Practice Acts in any regard. Ambiguities will not be resolved overnight - certainly questions of "what DOES that cadastral GIS system really represent" will continue to come up again and again. And certainly many stewards of cadastral GIS are aware of this, and put as many protections in place as they are able to - such as disclaimers and metadata, but for most citizens and casual users of the data, the phrase "consult the metadata" will only lead to glazed eyes. And while GIS systems are fully able to accomodate survey-grade data, and while some nations have made great strides toward a coordinated cadastre, here in the United States, the approach has been far more piecemeal, with varying degrees of robustness in how cadastral data can be improved. I have suggested record-level metadata for parcel data and similar approaches to allow refinement, where good, vetted, survey-grade locational data can be utilized and held toward iterative acquisition of a uniformly high-quality database. The locational accuracy of each parcel and subdivision can then be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, database linkages to plats and other survey data can be put in place.

Certainly not easy questions to answer overnight - but also hopefully I can share more insight and reality than perceptions that "Surveyors are trying to take over GIS".

Update: To follow up, I've put together and posted a "Compendium of State Land Surveying Practice Acts" with links to a number of jurisdictions' laws relating to the practice of land surveying.

The Alabama Legislature currently has a bill pending, HB 333, sponsored by Rep. Keahey, which essentially waters down Alabama's regulation for the practice of land surveying - an excerpt of the proposed bill is presented below:

Section 2. (a) The practice of rural land surveyor is limited to rural areas and municipalities with a population of less than 5,000.
(b) To qualify as a rural land surveyor one must meet one of the following requirements:
(1) Graduation from a four-year curriculum in civil engineering or forestry and successfully passing a written examination approved by the board relating to the laws, procedures, and practices of land surveying in Alabama.
(2) Graduation from an approved technical curriculum related to surveying or forestry; two years of supervised surveying experience; and successfully passing a written examination approved by the board relating to the laws, procedures, and practices of land surveying in Alabama.
(3) Eight or more years of field experience in land surveying and letters of recommendation from at least three individuals that will attest to satisfactory surveying work during these years.

Option 3 above bypasses the examination, it allows anyone to recommend the applicant, and thereby bypasses vetting of applicants. The traditional approach pursued, implemented and recommended by NCEES and most State Registration Boards has been to strive for a stable foundation which is not based on any single yardstick, but instead a combination of education, experience and examinations. Further, the case here in Pennsylvania has been to ensure that the applicant has some minimum amount of experience with boundary surveys, has been exposed to both field and office practices, and that experience gained has been progressive, and under the oversight of a licensed professional.

The full bill text is available here: AL HB333

This bill is inconsistent with all prior efforts toward regulation of the surveying profession in Alabama, is inconsistent with NCEES recommendations and their Model Law, and otherwise ill-advised in many ways.

Alabama residents are strongly urged to consider contacting their representatives and recommending opposition to this bill - call (334)242-7600 and ask to be put in touch with your representative.

Finally back home, after spending a week on the road for a few meetings around the country, including the NCEES Uniform Procedures and Legislative Guidelines committee meeting, to which I was recently appointed, to discuss the 5-year review of the NCEES Model Law and Rules and other associated charges, and a couple of days at the Pennsylvania Surveyors Conference.

Amazingly, during the course of one week, US Airways managed to lose one of my bags not once, but twice, on my way down to Florida and then on the way back. The bag did finally show up, but not after it took me a few trips to the store to restock on a few sundries, and not without finally arriving with a trashed wheel.


At any rate, it was a great trip, but I am happy to be home again.


The PSLS Conference was particularly enjoyable, I got to see a lot of old friends and colleagues from around the state, with a great turnout from our PSLS Pocono Chapter, as well as a few friends from the RPLS.COM message board, a few folks from PAMAGIC, and there were a bunch of great sessions to attend...

The sessions I attended:

• Introduction to FEMA National Flood Insurance, presented by Wendy Lathrop PLS, CFM - this was a great session, giving an overview of the DFIRM flood maps and data, versus Q3, discussion of the zones and base flood elevations and processes for submitting map amendments, for working with instances of fill and development within a flood zone, and other associated issues - will post more on FEMA, "Map Modernization" and the DFIRM process in the very near future, as it raises a huge, longstanding concern of mine regarding DFIRM data. Umm, on second thought, NO, I won't post more on my issues and concerns on DFIRMs and MapMod - at least until AFTER the upcoming RFP response...
  
  

  Surveyors use floodplain maps to identify flood-prone areas of sites and to determine the extent of those hazards. We will look at how first Housing and
  Urban Development (HUD) and later the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began mapping flood hazard areas, how the process has changed over the years, and the surveyor’s role in updating and correcting those maps. Regulations and use of the appropriate forms provide practical background when serving our clients and protecting ourselves from liability

• Records Research, presented by Lionel "Buck" Alexander PLS & Charles Colony PE PLS - this was a great session on cadastral research and locating legal records from a variety of sources, not just deed books, but registers of wills, orphans' court, road dockets, and many other sources.
  
  

  This workshop will cover how a deed research is started and completed. It will look at indexing systems, reading and interpreting deeds for chain of title, and the use of plats and plans in deed research, wills, estates, and tax sales as related to deed research will be discussed.

• Survey Measurement Analysis, presented by Chuck Ghilani, Ph.D. - this one featured analysis and propagation of error, and adjustment of error via least squares.
  
  

  This workshop will present and demonstrate the basic statistical analysis necessary to perform least squares adjustments. It will describe methods for
  analyzing and adjusting measurements to account for their errors. This workshop seeks to furnish theoretical understanding and demonstrate computer-aided application to common survey types including level networks, horizontal survey measurement networks, and GPS baseline networks.

• Easements and Rights of Way, presented by Gary Kent - this session gave a great overview of some of the legal aspects of easements and rights-of-way, in how easements and rights-of-way can be formed either through written or unwritten means (such as by necessity), along with case law and other great info.
  
  

  This workshop has the overall objective of helping surveyors more fully understand the types, elements and nature of easements, both written and
  unwritten. Specific performance objectives include improving participants'
  knowledge base such that after attending this workshop, they are able to: define what is an easement, outline the various types of easements, explain the difference between appurtenant easements and easements in gross, explain the difference between an easement and a license, identify the ways in which easements can be created and terminated, identify the types of unwritten easements and explain the nature of each type of unwritten easement.

• Dendrology & Forest Ecology, presented by Tim Pierson Ph.D. & Ken Comstock PLS
  This session provided a great overview of forestry - types of trees, mensuration and valuation of trees, forest growth and sustainability and history of Pennsylvania's forests and forest stewardship.
  
  

  Tree identification and understanding of the uses and values of our timber heritage. Also, the study of forest growth and the relationship of trees to our environment, and to our work as surveyors.

After hearing some recent trials and tribulations of a surveyor arguing a legal lot line adjustment with the county GIS department (same story repeated again and again all across the nation), it again underscores the issue of what is or isn't cadastral GIS.

In Pennsylvania, our State Law says,

“Practice of Land Surveying” means the practice of that branch of the profession of engineering which involves the location, relocation, establishment, reestablishment or retracement of any property line or boundary of any parcel of land or any road right-ofway, easement or alignment; the use of principles of land surveying, determination of the position of any monument or reference point which marks a property line boundary, or corner setting, resetting or replacing any such monument or individual point including the writing of deed descriptions; procuring or offering to procure land surveying work for himself or others; managing or conducting as managers, proprietors or agent any place of business from which land surveying work is solicited, performed, or practiced; the performance of the foregoing acts and services being prohibited to persons who are not granted certificates of registration under this act as a professional land surveyor unless exempt under other provisions of this act.

As such, what exactly does a tax map represent? It seems that many GIS departments hop back and forth between boxes, either arguing that it is not surveying, and only deals with a schematic showing taxation, but at the same time, argue issues of deeds and possession, enter their parcel boundaries using COGO, and so on.

Either it is, or it isn't. If it is indeed a representation of the cadastre - and after all, taxation is uniquely tied back to the parcels and their possession - then it needs to be properly treated as such.

If, on the other hand, it's not a representation of the cadastre, then perhaps it's in fact something which perhaps has no real meaning, merit or legal standing whatsoever.

If the former is the case, then it likely needs to be getting developed and maintained under the purview of a licensed professional land surveyor, per state law - if the latter is the case, then I believe the whole process needs to be re-evaluated.

I'll put this out there for debate, with the caveat that I did intend to stir the pot - I'm interested in getting others' earnest perspectives.

I was amazed to see the articles in the news about the border fence debacle, where construction evidently went full-tilt along the US-Mexico border to construct a fence to prevent illegal immigration, following 120-year-old barbed wire strands, and without any apparent proper surveying research, and construction stakeout.

I haven't posted in a while, have been busy with a number of things, such as new projects kicking off, proposals to write, along with a number of meetings.

This weekend, I got home from a couple of meetings, the NCEES Northeast Zone meeting and Colonial States Boards of Surveying Registration. One of the interesting things I learned a bit more about there was the South Carolina system of tiered land surveying licensure. One that struck me as odd is the GIS Surveyor licensure that was passed several years ago.

In South Carolina, they have implemented a series of surveying licenses, which are subsetted to certain disciplines - photogrammetry and geodetic surveyor were two of the ones I had heard discussed more about. With these, it's historically been my understanding and feeling that geodesists and photogrammetrists pretty much stuck to their respective fields, with little overlap or interest in boundary work or other aspects of surveying. GIS Surveyor seems like an odd one, though.

This is how South Carolina has implemented it:

• South Carolina Code of Laws
• South Carolina Code of Regulations

Historically, geodesy and photogrammetry have gone hand-in-hand with surveying, each a very specialized subdomain. Historically, however, neither of these have required licensure in most areas, and given the limited numbers of practitioners in these fields, and the limited number of litigations or other legal conundrums generally associated with geodesy or photogrammetry, I am not entirely certain that licensure even is warranted.

However, GIS is such a broad field. GIS supports so many disciplines, such as archaeology, urban and regional planning, resource conservation, geology, socioeconomics, and so on. In terms of overlap with surveying, it would be a Venn diagram showing a modest overlap - particularly where it comes to cadastral data, geodesy, photogrammetry, and locational data acquisition and locational data quality. But there is plenty to GIS which has nothing whatsoever to do with surveying.

The question of licensure brings up a number of other questions. Has the practice of GIS been trouble-free? Not at all. Has GIS been misused, have lawsuits arisen due to improper use of GIS? Yes. And unfortunately many of these have been as a result of improper use of cadastral data, where for instance tax-map grade GIS data was used to pursue building setback violations, or other ordinance-based conundrums, rather than relying on an actual field survey to verify lines of possession and improvements in the field. In some instances, unlicensed GIS practitioners have done such things as utilized handheld GPS units to locate property corners and similar features in the field. When it comes to these sorts of things, does GIS trespass on practice of land surveying? In most states, yes. And as such, they can be pursued under existing land surveying licensure laws.

In some instances, GIS data must be strictly controlled, due to legal implications, due to pending litigation or cost recovery in the instance of environmental cleanup data, due to loss of sensitive and endangered species in the case of conservation, or risk of looting in the case of archaeological data, and so on. In some of these instances, perhaps professional licensure may indeed be appropriate for GIS practitioners - the "protect the public" part of the equation being bolstered with risk to practitioners who do not exercise proper care, such as fines or loss of licensure. But does that have anything to do with surveying? No. Another approach is through self-policing within the GIS community, as some current proposals have it, but even good intentions pave the road to hell.

It will be interesting to see what the times bear.

For additional background, I have found a number of discussions on this - yet they all just seem to scratch the surface...

Information posted to the South Carolina State Mapping Advisory Committee

Further correspondence posted by Patrick J. Bresnahan, Richland County SC

I had a most enjoyable evening last night - several of us met up at TGI Fridays last night, Walter Robillard, Chuck Ghilani and his wife, several folks from PSLS Pocono Chapter - Harry and Bill Schoenagel and Steve Lesher.

After some great conversation over dinner, we went down to Penn State Wilkes-Barre and Mr. Robillard gave a spirited presentation covering quite a few interesting cases, involving evidence, case law, PLSS versus metes-and-bounds, and touched on many issues that drive the need for surveyors, attorneys and other professionals dealing with boundaries need to be aware of and deal with. It really drove home the message of doing due dilligence and for forging partnerships with our fellow professionals in the legal profession. With a good 30 to 40 people in attendance, including the Penn State student surveying constituent, it was a great turnout.

• Clark on Surveying and Boundaries
• Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location
• Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles

The MAPPS lawsuit, to clarify provisions of the Brooks act, as they pertain to geospatial, mapping and surveying activities has been postponed from this Friday to 2/9, per Adena Shutzberg at Directions Magazine - it will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

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A battle is imminent, with several professional societies challenging the Federal Government on whether the Brooks Act should apply to geospatial contracting efforts.

A trial is scheduled for February 2nd, Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) and Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering Services (COFPAES) v. United States of America - to provide definition and clarity and to look toward Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) in mapping procurements.

Directions Magazine provides their perspective on the issue, and drew my attention. MAPPS provides a page discussing the background and legal history.

The outcome should prove interesting - many issues have been simmering with regard to state and federal definitions of surveying and mapping, particularly as technologies have continued to evolve. I have my own unique perspective, as a geospatial practitioner, as a licensed professional, and as a member of a state licensing board - and these perspectives are in some ways in great harmony, largely in support of Qualifications-based Selection, however also in some ways in dissonance with QBS, as mere fact of licensure may not qualify one to perform the work. As a regulatory body, the State Registration Boards' duty is to ensure protection of the public - and in many ways, lack of adherence to the Brooks Act has skirted this. However, many state laws are similarly overbroad, and/or antiquated.

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