DE Land Surveyor cheat sheet

Delaware survey practice is governed by 24 Del. C. ch. 27; a license is required to practice land surveying or to offer surveying services to the public in the state.

Minimum land surveyor licensure path: meet the Board's education requirement, accrue the required progressive field/office experience under a licensed surveyor, pass the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying and Principles and Practice of Surveying exams, then obtain the Delaware license.

Boundary retracement rule: follow the footsteps of the original surveyor; original monumentation controls over bearings and distances, and distances control over bearings when monuments are undisturbed.

Priority of boundary evidence (general hierarchy): undisturbed original monuments > original field notes and plats > subsequent surveys > natural monuments > artificial monuments > courses and distances > area or quantity.

Record research sequence: chain of title, prior recorded plats and deeds, highway and subdivision records, then field evidence; reconcile deed calls to monuments rather than forcing monuments to deed numbers.

Aliquot part subdivision: divide sections by halving repeatedly; a quarter-quarter section is nominally 40 acres but actual acreage is governed by the original government survey and monument positions.

Adverse possession in Delaware requires actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous possession that is hostile to the true owner for the statutory period (20 years under 10 Del. C. § 7901) unless color of title shortens it.

Prescriptive easement in Delaware: use that is open, notorious, continuous, and adverse for 20 years creates an easement; permissive use defeats the claim.

Professional conduct: a surveyor may not sign or seal work not prepared under their direct supervision, must disclose conflicts of interest, and must retain survey records as required by Board rule.

Error propagation: random errors accumulate as the square root of the sum of squares; a closed traverse's linear misclosure is divided among legs in proportion to length when applying compass (Bowditch) adjustment.

Coordinate geometry check: for a closed polygon traverse, the algebraic sum of latitudes (ΔN) and departures (ΔE) must equal zero after adjustment; misclosure = sqrt(ΣΔN² + ΣΔE²).

Compass (Bowditch) rule correction per leg: correction in latitude = (leg length / total traverse length) × total latitude misclosure, applied with opposite sign.

Traverse precision is expressed as relative closure, e.g., 1:10,000 = misclosure divided into total length; verify against the standard required by the project or statute.

Horizontal curve formulas: T = R tan(Δ/2); L = RΔ(radians) = 100Δ/D for degree-of-curve D; M = R[1 − cos(Δ/2)]; LC = 2R sin(Δ/2).

Arc definition of degree of curve: D = 5729.578/R; chord definition differs and is used for railroad work.

Vertical curve: elevation at any point uses y = (g2 − g1)x²/(2L) + g1x + PVC elevation; the high/low point occurs where the tangent slope equals zero, x = −g1L/(g2 − g1).

Area by coordinates (shoelace): 2A = Σ(Xi·Yi+1 − Xi+1·Yi) around the closed figure; take the absolute value and divide by two.

Leveling: misclosure is compared to allowable limits such as ±0.05√M ft (M in miles) for ordinary differential leveling; balance backsight and foresight distances to cancel refraction and curvature error.

Total station/EDM: apply atmospheric correction for temperature and pressure, prism constant, and reduce slope distance to horizontal with HD = SD·cos(vertical angle).

Map projection: Delaware lies in the Delaware Coordinate System (SPCS), with a defined scale factor and convergence; grid distance = ground distance × combined factor, and grid azimuth = geodetic azimuth − convergence (sign per convention).