Cadastral Standards Background Information

The background and historical information available through this website is a sample of some of the information available to the surveying profession, provided for the benefit of cadastral surveying in Tasmania and the maintenance of the cadastre for current and future generations.

Many reports, books, articles, guidelines, enquiries and memoranda have been written over the years that are useful in understanding the history, purpose and manner in which land ownership and the definition of property boundaries have developed in Australia in general, and Tasmania in particular.

Some information (such as circular memoranda) is provided directly to surveyors by the Land Titles Office and the Office of the Surveyor General. However, much more information remained with authors and recipients at the time of publication and until recently hasn't been readily available to later generations.

Ongoing projects for the digitisation of journal, archive and parliamentary records are constantly adding to the information that is readily available and key papers and links are added to this page and Cadastral Standards Historical Information as and when they are identified.

Tasmania specific information:

Legal Precedents in Cadastral Boundary Reinstatement (476Kb)

Highways in Tasmania (122Kb)

Natural boundaries (135Kb)

Legislative impacts on plans of surveys 2011 (223Kb)

Early land dealings in Tasmania from settlement to 1827 (89Kb)

Void grants and located land (45Kb)

Using RTK GNSS in Cadastral Surveys (Tasmania) (84Kb)

OSG Circular 2016-3 Coordination of Surveys of Land - Update (64Kb)

Property boundary survey plans held by Land Tasmania (104Kb)

Useful Links:

Survey Principles and Case Law Rulings - Chapter 4 in South Australian Cadastral Survey Guidelines

Boundaries and the Common Law

Paper by Glenn Campbell delivered at Graduate Surveyors Weekend Seminar 2013, 4-6 Oct 2013, University of Southern Queensland

Draw conclusions on the wall: Defence of the Monumented Cadastre

Article by Mick Strack (2017) in Australian Property Law Journal. 26. 1.

The Judicial Functions of Surveyors

Essay by Thomas Cooley (Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Michigan, 1864–1885) at Wiley Online

Standard for the Australian Survey Control Network Special Publication 1 - SP1

Version 2.1 of SP1 and the associated guidelines complete the transition from CLASS and ORDER to UNCERTAINTY as the basis of evaluating and expressing the quality of measurements and positions in Australia's survey control mark network.

The Guideline for Adjustment and Evaluation of Survey Control outlines ICSM’s recommended procedures for using least squares to estimate and evaluate the position and uncertainty of survey control marks, to evaluate measurement uncertainty, and to evaluate network reliability. It includes examples.

The Guideline for Control Surveys by GNSS contains recommendations and guidance on RTK and Network RTK surveys and an example of how to evaluate RTK survey quality using coordinate comparison.

Tidal Interface Compendium of Terms

The ICSM Tidal Interface Working Group has attempted to identify terms used in a legal context in jurisdictions and relate them to various tidal definitions that make up the tidal interface.

National Geodetic Survey (USA) - User Guidelines for Classical Real-time GNSS Positioning