Keep Your Job (21)
The Line Isnât the Boundary â Understanding Legal Constructs
Key Point: A boundary is a legal idea first, a physical point second.
You can measure it. You can mark it. You can stake it with millimeter precision. But that still doesnât make it a boundary â at least not in the legal sense.
Surveyors learn early on that what seems like a straightforward line in the field often conceals a far more complex truth. A âboundaryâ isnât just a line between two GPS points, or a fence line thatâs been there for decades. Itâs a legal construct, a product of overlapping interests, historical context, and the written (and sometimes unwritten) record of ownership. In short: the boundary exists on paper and in law before it ever exists in space.
And yet, itâs easy for even experienced field crews to slip into the mentality that accuracy equals correctness. After all, we work with tools designed to reduce uncertainty â total stations, GNSS receivers, laser scanners â and the more precise our measurement
I. Introduction: Surveyors, Social Media, and the Illusion of Connection
Once upon a timeâthough not so long agoâsocial media arrived with a promise that felt revolutionary: connection. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (now X) vowed to bring professionals together, collapsing distance, breaking down communication barriers, and making it easier than ever to share knowledge. And for the land surveying professionâan industry built on collaboration, mentorship, and collective experienceâit sounded like the perfect fit. Finally, a place to swap stories from the field, troubleshoot technical problems, and pass down hard-earned knowledge from one generation to the next.
But what surveyors got instead wasnât connection. It was extraction.
Today, Facebook and its competitors are less a gathering place for professionals and more a digital graveyardâa place where the knowledge of thousands of surveyors is mined, monetized, and buried by platforms designed not to preserve expertise,
National Surveyors Week is here, and the future of surveying has never been more important. From AI overreach to deregulation and public misconceptions, surveyors are facing challenges that will define the profession for generations. This five-day, 15-article series dives deep into these critical issues, offering clear strategies to protect licensure, advocate for the profession, and reclaim control of geospatial data. Now is the time to engage, educate, and leadâexplore the full series and be part of the movement to secure the future of surveying.
Monday: AI, Automation, and the Delusion of Effortless Accuracy
AI and automation promise to revolutionize surveying, but are they delivering accuracyâor just hype? This three-part series explores the truth behind AI in surveying, its limitations, and the growing battle over who controls geospatial data.
đč The Hype vs. Reality of AI in Surveying: Why Tech Companies Keep Getting It Wrong
AI is often marketed as a game-changer for surveying,
The Call to Action: How Surveyors Must Organize, Educate, and Lead
"If we donât fight for surveying, weâll end up watching from the sidelines as our profession gets redefined without us."
Surveyors, it's time to confront an uncomfortable truth: The days of quietly excelling at your job while assuming the world will recognize your importance are over. The profession is under attackânot from an obvious enemy, but from a creeping erosion of its authority, recognition, and influence. Deregulation efforts, public ignorance, and corporate exploitation threaten to reshape surveying into something unrecognizable. And if surveyors donât actively push back, theyâll find themselves relegated to irrelevance, watching as their expertise is devalued, their authority is stripped away, and their profession is hijacked by those who neither understand nor respect it.
This isnât a hypothetical threat. The warning signs are everywhere. Consider how licensure has come under attack, with lawmakers entertain
The Public Perception Problem: Why No One Knows What Surveyors Do
âIf the public thinks all surveyors do is fly drones, they'll never understand why your job mattersâor why they should care if it disappears.â
Ask a random person what a land surveyor does, and youâre likely to get one of three responses: a confused shrug, a vague mention of maps, or an enthusiasticâbut wildly incorrectâcomment about drones. This is more than just an amusing misunderstanding; itâs a crisis of visibility, one that threatens the entire profession.
Surveyors play an essential role in society, defining the physical reality that underpins property rights, infrastructure, and environmental management. But to the general public, surveying is either invisible or mistaken for a tech-driven side gig, lumped in with drone hobbyists and AI-generated maps. And when people donât understand what you do, they donât care when itâs threatened.
This lack of public awareness isn't just a minor inconvenience; itâs a direct e
Surveyors: The Last Guardians of Reality
Surveyors donât just measure landâthey define reality. Every highway, boundary, and piece of infrastructure relies on the precision of licensed professionals who spend years mastering their craft. But what happens when corporate algorithms start making those decisions instead?
Weâre already seeing the first signs of this shift. Big Tech is moving aggressively into the geospatial industry, promising instant mapping solutions using AI, drones, and automated software. Their message? That human expertise is outdatedâthat surveying can be reduced to an algorithm.
Surveyors know better.
The reality on the ground isnât just a set of coordinatesâitâs a complex, legally binding, historically rich, and environmentally dynamic system that requires professional judgment. An AI model doesnât understand why a 200-year-old boundary dispute matters. It doesnât see the difference between a shifting riverbank and a fixed property marker. It doesnât have the accou
Why Education Is Surveyingâs Lifeline
Surveying isnât just a jobâitâs a profession that requires a deep understanding of land, law, history, and technology. Itâs a craft built on precision, experience, and knowledge passed down from one generation to the next.
But what happens when thereâs no one left to pass it down to?
Right now, the surveying industry is facing a crisis. The average age of a licensed surveyor in the U.S. is approaching 60, and retirements are far outpacing new entrants into the field. At the same time, surveying programs at colleges and universities are shrinkingâor disappearing altogether. Young people arenât choosing surveying because, frankly, they donât even know itâs an option.
Meanwhile, tech companies and startups are more than happy to fill the gap. Their AI-powered platforms and automated drone solutions promise âeffortlessâ surveying, feeding the illusion that experience and expertise can be replaced by algorithms and quick-fix software.
The consequences?
Who Owns Surveying Data? The Corporate Battle Over Knowledge
"Surveying data is valuableâso why are we handing it over to tech companies for free?"
Imagine youâre out in the field, putting in the hoursâwalking boundary lines, verifying control points, cross-checking legal descriptionsâdoing the precise, meticulous work that keeps the physical world in order. Then, without realizing it, the data you just collected gets absorbed into a private database, repackaged, and sold to someone else for a profit.
Thatâs not a hypothetical. Itâs happening right now.
Surveyors are creating incredibly valuable dataâand giving it away for free. Whether itâs through publicly funded projects that get scraped by tech companies or private-sector work that isnât properly protected, surveying professionals are fueling billion-dollar industries without seeing a dime in return.
If this doesnât sound like a problem yet, consider this: Once a dataset is taken by a corporation, itâs no longer yours to correct, u
The Generational Knowledge Gap: Where Are the Next Surveyors?
"If the next generation doesn't step up soon, the only surveyors left will be drones running on half-baked algorithms and wishful thinking."
Imagine a future where your decades of hard-earned surveying expertiseâknowledge built through long days in the field, deciphering cryptic deeds, and fighting boundary disputes in courtâsimply disappears. Not because your memory failsâthough, letâs be honest, thatâll happen eventuallyâbut because thereâs no one left to inherit it.
The next generation of surveyors is perpetually âloading,â stuck at zero percent. The profession is staring down a knowledge extinction event, one that threatens to unravel the very foundation of land ownership, infrastructure, and geospatial accuracy.
This isnât a distant problem; itâs happening now. Surveyors are retiring in record numbers, and fewer young professionals are stepping up to fill the void. If this trend continues, it wonât be long before survey
The Path Forward: How Surveyors Can Defend Professional Standards
"If we donât fight for licensure, weâll be fighting in court when someone builds a shopping mall inside your backyard."
Imagine stepping outside one morning, coffee in hand, ready to enjoy a quiet weekendâonly to find a construction crew staking out a new building where your backyard used to be. Confused, you pull out your property records, but the boundary lines donât match whatâs happening on the ground. After some digging, you learn that a deregulated âsurveyorâ working with outdated or misinterpreted data has incorrectly plotted your lot, and now, according to the developerâs maps, your land is fair game.
Sound ridiculous? Maybe. But in a world where surveying licensure is
 weakened or outright abolished, this kind of chaos is inevitable.
Surveying isnât just about drawing linesâitâs about ensuring those lines are accurate, legally defensible, and publicly trusted. Without licensure, professional standards erode, an
When Licensure Disappears, So Does Accuracy (And Public Trust)
"Imagine going to a doctor who learned surgery from TikTok. Thatâs what unlicensed surveying looks like."
Think about the last time you had a medical check-up. Now imagine your doctor telling you, with a straight face, that he skipped medical school and learned everything he knows from YouTube tutorials. Would you trust him with your health? Probably not.
Now, take that same thought and apply it to land surveying. Would you trust someone with no formal training, no licensing, and no legal accountability to define your property boundaries? To map out the foundation of a bridge? To determine floodplain risks?
Of course not. And yet, this is exactly what deregulation advocates are pushing for.
They claim professional licensure is nothing more than a bureaucratic obstacleâan unnecessary barrier to âinnovationâ and âfree market competition.â But what they donât mention is this:
When licensure disappears, accuracy disappears wit
The Push to Kill Surveying Licensure: Whoâs Behind It and Why
âDeregulation means anyone with a drone and a YouTube tutorial could call themselves a âsurveyor.â Think about that.â
Imagine a world where your profession no longer requires a license. No formal education. No testing. No accountability. Just a drone, an app, and a self-proclaimed "expert" ready to sell surveying services to unsuspecting clients. Sound ridiculous? Itâs already happening.
The push to deregulate surveying licensure isnât just some fringe movementâitâs a coordinated effort by powerful lobbying groups, tech companies, and corporate developers who see licensure as an âobstacleâ to their profits. If they succeed, surveying wonât just be devaluedâit will be overrun by unqualified operators creating inaccurate data, driving down industry standards, and flooding the market with unreliable results.
Surveyors must wake up to this threat. Licensure isnât about gatekeepingâitâs about protecting public trust, property ri
The Fight to Save NOAA: How Surveyors Can Advocate for Their Own Future
âThe good news: We can save NOAA. The bad news: We actually have to do something about it.â
Surveyors, itâs time for a reality check. The days of quietly going about your work, trusting that the infrastructure supporting your profession will always be there, are over. If NOAAâs funding is slashed, surveying accuracy, professional credibility, and even public safety will take a direct hit.
And yet, many surveyors are still waiting for someone else to sound the alarm. No one else will. The hard truth? If surveyors donât advocate for NOAA, it will disappear.
This isnât just about saving an agencyâitâs about defending the foundation of modern geospatial accuracy. Without NOAA, GPS corrections fail, boundary disputes skyrocket, floodplain data becomes unreliable, and private corporations swoop in to profit from the chaos.
Surveyors must take action now to educate lawmakers, the public, and even their own clients about w
What Happens to Surveying If NOAA Loses Funding?
âIf NOAA goes down, so does your accuracy. And probably your sanity.â
Imagine waking up tomorrow to the news that NOAA has been defunded. Most Americans would skim past the headline, assuming itâs just another bureaucratic reshuffling. But for surveyors, engineers, and geospatial professionals, it would signal the beginning of a logistical and economic nightmare.
Within days, your GPS accuracy would deteriorate, project delays would skyrocket, and clientsâfrustrated by inexplicably shifting boundariesâwould start questioning the credibility of your work. The surveying industry, which has long relied on NOAAâs National Geodetic Survey (NGS) and Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS), would be thrown into chaos, forced to operate with outdated, uncorrected data.
This isnât an exaggeration. Without NOAAâs infrastructure, the very foundation of modern geospatial accuracy collapses. If you think mapping errors are bad now, look at h
Why NOAA Is The Most Important Agency Youâve Never Thought About
âImagine trying to survey without GPS. No, seriously. Think about that for a second.â
Surveying without NOAA would be like navigating without a compass, designing a bridge without knowing the riverâs depth, or, to put it bluntly, guessing instead of measuring. Yet, for most people, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) barely registers as more than just another government acronymâa quiet agency operating in the background, doing important things that few outside the geospatial and scientific communities ever think about.
This lack of public recognition is a problem. Because if NOAA suddenly disappeared or had its funding slashed, the consequences for land surveyorsâand society at largeâwould be immediate and catastrophic.
Surveyors rely on NOAA for precise geospatial positioning, climate data, and infrastructure planning tools that keep our world aligned with physical reality. If the CORS network went
Surveyors vs. The Algorithm: Who Controls the Future of Mapping?
âLetting AI control surveying without oversight is like letting autocorrect write legal contracts. Itâll be fast. Itâll be efficient. And itâll be wrong.â
In an era where automation is celebrated as the ultimate efficiency booster, algorithms increasingly shape how we measure, map, and perceive the world around us. Tech companies push AI-driven mapping as the future, offering promises of seamless accuracy, real-time updates, and frictionless land management. But beneath the sleek marketing lies a far more unsettling reality: the growing privatization of geospatial data and the erosion of professional oversight.
Surveyors are at a critical crossroads. Either they take control of how AI is used in mapping, or they risk being reduced to mere validators of corporate-produced geospatial dataâdata that is often incomplete, flawed, or biased in ways that serve commercial interests over accuracy. The question isnât whether AI sho
How AI Will Change (Not Replace) the Surveying Profession
âAI can measure a property, but it canât stop your client from getting sued when the numbers are wrong. Thatâs your job.â
In case you havenât heard, the robots are comingânot to steal your job exactly, but to change it in ways both promising and precarious. Tech evangelists declare that AI is revolutionizing everything, from the way we cook breakfast to how we find love. For land surveyors, AI offers something less dramatic but no less significant: faster data processing, increased efficiency, and automation of tedious tasks. But the key question remainsâwho is in control?
AIâs role in surveying will be determined not by the technology itself, but by how surveyors choose to use it. If professionals embrace AI strategically, it can enhance their expertise rather than replace it. However, if AI is handed too much responsibility without oversight, the profession risks being marginalized by tech companies that neither understand nor
The Hype vs. Reality of AI in Surveying: Why Tech Companies Keep Getting It Wrong
Read the next article in this series: How AI Will Change (Not Replace) the Surveying Profession
"Can AI replace you? No. But can an uninformed client think it can? Also noâif we educate them first."
Picture this: a glossy Silicon Valley conference room, where tech visionaries, flush with venture capital and visions of disruption, unveil their latest world-changing innovation: "Fully Autonomous AI Land Surveying." The presentation is seamless, the jargon dense, and the confidence intoxicating. A few PowerPoint slides later, the investors are sold. They see efficiency, cost savings, and the elimination of that one unpredictable factorâhuman beings. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, in a real-world construction site, a land surveyor carefully reviews historical deed records, cross-checks field measurements, and adjusts for terrain variations that no AI model can yet comprehend. Somewhere, the champagne pop
National Surveyors Week is here, and the future of surveying has never been more important. From AI overreach to deregulation and public misconceptions, surveyors are facing challenges that will define the profession for generations. This five-day, 15-article series dives deep into these critical issues, offering clear strategies to protect licensure, advocate for the profession, and reclaim control of geospatial data. Now is the time to engage, educate, and leadâexplore the full series and be part of the movement to secure the future of surveying.Â
Monday: AI, Automation, and the Delusion of Effortless Accuracy
AI and automation promise to revolutionize surveying, but are they delivering accuracyâor just hype? This three-part series explores the truth behind AI in surveying, its limitations, and the growing battle over who controls geospatial data.
đč The Hype vs. Reality of AI in Surveying: Why Tech Companies Keep Getting It Wrong
AI is often marketed as a game-changer for surveying,
Sharing and Educating One Another
Surveying Articles is a place for members to Share Land Surveying related articles, presentations and knowledge with the Land Surveyors United Community. Post or embed articles for future generations of land surveyors.
Surveying Articles
Continuing Education

FB comment