Land survey, geotechnical investigation, civil engineering

Bucharest, Romania
May 18, 2020 5:28pm CST
Hi all. I would like to talk a little bit about the world of civil engineering and what it entails. In the world of civil engineering the most important input data are land survey and geotechnical investigation. Land survey means extracting the coordinates (X=latitude, Y=longitude and Z=elevation) of a certain area and also drawing the existing items that are found on that area. Geotechnical investigation means drilling holes into the ground and extracting samples in order to show what are the existing layers that the ground has on the specific surface that is being investigated. These two activities are crucial for an engineer working in the field of civil engineering. If any of these two activities, either land survey or geotechnical investigation, are bad then the designer, which will have to deal with those bad services, is going to have a really hard time trying to make its design to look decent. In other words, the design project will be bad and the existing surface shall look very bad if these two elements are bad. And now, I finally get to tell you what I wanted to tell you: I have never seen any proper land survey or geotechnical investigation during my 4 years of working in the field of civil engineering. Perhaps I have been very unlucky until now but I think I can see a pattern in the way that these two parts of civil engineering are treated: they are made in great hurry and many errors will occur. You may be wondering: why are they so hurried? The answer is simple: because the entire world is hurried and it seems that society has gone crazy at least in this field and in this country where I live. Now, let me be clear about something: I would not care about the quality of the land survey and geotechnical investigation if they did not affect my work in any way but they do affect my work and I do have to lose lots of hours trying to repair the errors that the ones that have performed these services did. Will this situation ever get better? I don't know, I am starting to lose hope. What are your thoughts on this issue? Will things change for the better? Also, if you yourself work in the world of civil engineering or if you know anybody that works in this field, what is it like in your case, in your country? How good are the geotechnical investigations and land surveys that you generally deal with?
1 person likes this
1 response
@DianneN (247191)
• United States
18 May 20
I have a friend who is a geologist who travels the world correcting others’ errors. I’m not into geotechnical investigations, but now I know why you don’t have time to cook. Good luck with that!
1 person likes this
• Bucharest, Romania
18 May 20
I am not performing geotechnical investigations either but I do need them in order to create my design.
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@DianneN (247191)
• United States
18 May 20
@Cristi_Ichim Of course. Difficult work.
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• Bucharest, Romania
18 May 20
@DianneN very frustrating work especially when you have to deal with bad services, bad input data. It can also get you in a lot of legal trouble too if you are not careful.
1 person likes this