8799 version 6

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Calculate areas, contours, and volumes for survey purposes

Level / 3
Credits / 8

PurposeThis unit standard is for people working, or who intend to work, in the surveying profession as a survey technician.

People credited with this unit standard are able to: calculate areas for survey purposes; calculate volumes for survey purposes; and calculate contours for survey purposes.

Subfield / Surveying
Domain / Survey Practice
Status / Registered
Status date / 25 February2008
Date version published / 25 February2008
Planned review date / 31 December 2012
Entry information / Recommended: Unit 5251, Choose and apply trigonometric methods to solve problems involving lengths and angles, or demonstrate equivalent knowledge and skills.
Accreditation / Evaluation of documentation and visit by NZQA and industry.
Standard setting body (SSB) / Infrastructure ITO
Accreditation and Moderation Action Plan (AMAP) reference / 0101

This AMAP can be accessed at

Special notes

1Evidence is required of calculating survey data using mathematical principles and showing working. Computer software may not be used in achievement of credit for this unit standard.

2A reference for this unit standard is Price, WF, and Uren, J, Surveying for Engineers (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), available at

Elements and performance criteria

Element 1

Calculate areas for survey purposes.

Performance criteria

1.1Areas incorporating circular boundaries are calculated using geometrical principles.

Rangearea – a traffic roundabout, one other.

1.2The area of a polygon is calculated using the double longitude method.

1.3Areas of arbitrary shape are determined using a combination of calculations and a planimeter.

Rangecalculations – multiple polygons, trapezoids;

one planimeter of – linear, polar, analogue, digital.

Element 2

Calculate volumes for survey purposes.

Rangecalculations for - an earthwork cut and fill, a stockpile, a pond.

Performance criteria

2.1Volumes are calculated using a variety of methods appropriate to the item.

Rangeevidence is required of the following methods – end areas, prisms, cross sections, estimating, geometrical shapes.

Element 3

Calculate contours for survey purposes.

Performance criteria

3.1Land contours are calculated from reduced levels involving no less than one hundred spot levels.

3.2Contours are calculated for a stockpile of at least fifty cubic metres.

Please note

Providers must be accredited by NZQA, or an inter-institutional body with delegated authority for quality assurance, before they can report credits from assessment against unit standards or deliver courses of study leading to that assessment.

Industry Training Organisations must be accredited by NZQA before they can register credits from assessment against unit standards.

Accredited providers and Industry Training Organisations assessing against unit standards must engage with the moderation system that applies to those standards.

Accreditation requirements and an outline of the moderation system that applies to this standard are outlined in the Accreditation and Moderation Action Plan (AMAP). The AMAP also includes useful information about special requirements for organisations wishing to develop education and training programmes, such as minimum qualifications for tutors and assessors, and special resource requirements.

Comments on this unit standard

Please contact Infrastructure you wish to suggest changes to the content of this unit standard.

 New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2018