One of the oldest fields in the profession of engineering, civil engineering is the planning, designing, operating, building, and maintaining public infrastructures like roads, bridges, dams, drainage systems, levees, and other big property developments. Civil engineering services are required as towns and cities become populated to provide the necessary facilities and utilities to make life for the residents easier and convenient.

A civil engineer is a professional who performs civil engineering projects, from planning and design to construction and maintenance of infrastructures. In certain instances, they can also manage the restoration of abandoned buildings and supervise the preparation of a construction site, like excavation, earth moving and grading for big construction projects. Moreover, civil engineers may review bids from subcontractors, make certain that the project is in compliance with the local building codes, and may carry out or write the specifications for destructive or nondestructive testing of the operation, dependability, and long-lasting stability of materials and structures.

Civil engineers give particular attention to engineering design details such as the technical aspects of the existing and natural built environment, the social and economic factors, and duration the estimated duration of the project. These engineers combine a number of services like land surveying and construction investigation to ensure that the client’s expectations will be met from start to finish.

Civil engineers may work in the private sector (from homeowners to international companies) or in the public sector (from municipals to national governments). Most of them follow a particular specialty (construction engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, land development, transportation engineering, hydraulic engineering, and environmental engineering) while those employed by government agencies combine a variety of specializations particularly in the maintenance and/or improvement of major infrastructures. In certain instances, a civil engineer may also perform land surveying services.

Land surveying generally covers all features concerning 3 major areas: land, property, and construction.  It is a profession that uses scientific methods in determining the three-dimensional or terrestrial position of points above, on, or below the earth’s surface as well as the angles and distances between these points. Surveying is done to establish boundaries for ownership, to create property maps, or as required by the government.

Surveyors, together with civil engineers and construction professionals, work together to make accurate measurements regarding property boundaries in addition to providing relevant information needed for construction projects, creating maps, and engineering purposes. Their work involves the application of physics, engineering, mathematics (trigonometry and geometry), and law.

Land surveying is generally done in the field and/or in an office. Land surveyors make use of state-of-the-art equipment and tools like 3D scanners, total stations, digital levels, GPS receivers, robotic total stations, radios, prisms, handheld tablets, and surveying software like CAD.

Their job is commonly divided into five tasks :

1. Research and analysis
2. Data gathering and field work
3. Data processing and computation
4. Data representation or mapping
5. Setting monuments/markers or stakeout

There are a number of land surveys and the most common are:

ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey
Boundary/Property Survey
Condominium Surveys
Construction Surveying and Layout
Subdivision Surveys
Topographic Survey