Republic of the

Philippines
ISABELA STATE
UNIVERSITY
Echague, Isabela

Title

Chapter 1 – Principles of Surveying

Lesson 1 – Types of Surveying

Introduction

Surveying may be divided into types. One is plane surveying which extends
over relatively small portion of the earth’s surface, where the spherical shape of
the earth may be disregarded. The other one is geodetic surveying where the
survey is of such wide extent that the exact shape of the earth is taken into
consideration either approximately by considering it as a true sphere or more
accurately as an oblate spheroid of revolution. The polar axis of this spheroid is
less than the equatorial axis by 1/297 or 1/3 percent.

Learning Outcome

At the end of this topic, students must be able to:

1. Define surveying and discuss its importance in Agricultural and Biosystems
Engineering;
2. Enumerate and explain the purposes of surveying;
3. List down and describe the types of surveying; and
4. Identify and describe the kinds of plane surveying.

Learning Topic

Types of Surveying

1. Land surveying deals with the subdivision of lands into parcels, fixing or re
establishing property lines, calculating land area, constructing of land maps
and writing descriptions of parcels of land or deeds.

2. Topographic Surveying consists of securing of fields data from which may be

made a topographic map indicating the relief of elevations and inequalities of
the land surface.
3. Route surveying consists of determining the ground configurations and
locations of objects along proposed line such as that of highway, railway, canal,
pipe line, establishing the line on the ground and calculating volumes of earth
work.

4. Hydrographic surveying has reference to surveying bodies of water for the

purpose of navigation, water supply or subaqueous construction; it is in most
cases a topographic survey along the shoreline, taking soundings, and
observations of the change in level of bodies of water or the discharge of
streams.

5. Mine surveying makes use of the principles of land, topographic and route
surveying in establishing mineral claims, location of mine structures and
underground working; the determination of geological formations and
calculations of volume of earth work.

6. City surveying is the term frequently applied to the surveying operations within
the city or municipality with regards to mapping its area, laying out new streets
and lots, constructing streets and sewers and other public utilities, building, and
other improvements.

7. Cadastral surveying a practically obsolete term, has reference to extensive

surveys made for the purpose of locating property lines, boundaries and
improvements in detail, primarily for the use in connection with the extent,
value, ownership, and transfer of land.

8. Aerial photogrammetry is the application to surveying the science of

measurement by means of photographs taken with specially designed cameras
either in airplane of from ground stations.

Learning Activities (Problem Set)

1. For each type of surveying above, identify one (1) AB Engineering work, activity,
or field that uses each kind of surveying.
2. Identify at least three (3) types of surveying that were not included in the topic in
this module, search from any sources (such as internet, surveying books,
Geodetic Engineering).