"Indeed, the most important part of engineering work--and also of other scientific work--is the determination of the method of attacking the problem, whatever it may be, whether an experimental investigation, or a theoretical calculation. ... It is by the choice of a suitable method of attack, that intricate problems are reduced to simple phenomena, and then easily solved." Charles Proteus Steinmetz.
The structure of this book is to provide a sequence of theory, workshops and practical field sessions that mimic a simple survey project, designed for civil and mining engineers. The format of the book is based on a number of years of experience gained in presenting the course at undergraduate and post graduate levels. The course is designed to guide engineers through survey tasks that the engineering industry feels is necessary for them to have a demonstrated competency in surveying techniques, data gathering and reduction, and report presentation. The course i
s not designed to make engineers become surveyors. It is designed to allow an appreciation of the civil and mine engineering surveyor's job. There are many excellent text books available on the subject of engineering surveying, but they address the surveyor, not the engineer. Hopefully this book will distil many parts of the standard text book. A lot of the material presented is scattered through very disparate sources and has been gathered into this book to show what techniques lie behind a surveyor's repertoire of observational and computational skills, and provide an understanding of the decisions made in terms of the presentation of results. The course has been designed to run over about 6 weeks of a semester, providing a half unit load which complements a computer aided design (CAD) based design project.
About the Author: Professor Joseph Awange joined the Department of Spatial Sciences (Curtin University, Australia) in 2006 under a Curtin Research Fellowship and concurrently undertook the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellowship at the Geodetic Institute (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) having been awarded the Australian 2008-2011 Ludwig Leichhardt Memorial Fellowship for experienced researchers. In 2015, he won all the three major Fellowship Awards: Alexander von Humboldt (Germany), Japan Society of Promotion of Science (Japan) and Brazil Frontier of Science (Brazil) to carry out research in those countries. At Curtin University, he is currently engaged in teaching and research having attracted more than $1.5M worth of research grants. He obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Surveying from the University of Nairobi (Kenya), and was also awarded a merit scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD), which facilitated his obtaining a second MSc degree and PhD in Geodesy at Stuttgart University (Germany). In 2002-2004, he was awarded the prestigious Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship to pursue postdoctoral research at Kyoto University (Japan). Prof Awange attained International Editorial role in Springer Earth Science Books and has authored 11 scholarly books with the prestigious Springer publishers and more than 130 peer-reviewed high impact journal publications (in e, g., Remote Sensing of Environment, Journal of Climate, Climatic Change, Advances in Water Resources, International Journal of Climatology, and Journal of Hydrology among others).
John Walker was awarded a B.App.Sc (Surveying and Mapping) in 1988, and a Post-Grad Dip. (Surveying and Mapping) in 1989 by Curtin University.
John had been a casual lecturer and tutor at Curtin since 1998, working in the areas of Aviation (Navigation, Flight Planning, Navigation Aids, and Flight Management); Surveying (Survey Computations, Survey
ing methods, GNSS) and Cartography (Computer Aided Mapping). He is the continuing author of a first semester course manual in Survey Computations.
He has worked closely with Dr Joseph Awange on the practical portion of a Surveying unit for Civil and Mining Engineers and has collaborated as co-author and editor of this book.
John has extensive experience as an Engineering Surveyor. He is also a commercial pilot in light aircraft and was formerly an Air Traffic Controller with leadership in Operational Control and Aviation Search and Rescue.
