Cadastral survey standards, rules and specifications
Rules, not recipes
The current Cadastral Survey Rules (CSR 2021) are made under s 49 of the Cadastral Survey Act 2002 and replace the 2010 Surveyor-General Rules. They are performance-based: they state outcomes such as boundaries accurately defined, marks reliable and the CSD complete, rather than prescribing every field step. The Surveyor-General issues specifications for CSD format, Landonline lodgement, mark symbols and accuracy.
What a CSD must contain
A CSD is the digital dataset lodged in Landonline. It includes survey plan graphics, coordinate and vector data, mark records covering type, condition and provenance, a survey report, and certification by a licensed cadastral surveyor. The CSD must contain enough evidence for another surveyor to re-establish the boundaries and must connect to the geodetic network.
Worked example
A boundary corner falls on a steep bank where a peg cannot be driven. The rules allow an offset or witness mark, but the CSD must record the relationship between the boundary corner and the mark, and the survey report must explain why the corner is not directly marked. Simply omitting the mark fails the outcome.
Traps
Candidates lose marks by treating the rules as a checklist, by lodging graphical data without mark provenance, by using the superseded 2010 rules, and by certifying a CSD they have not independently checked.