The first edition of The Surveying Handbook, although a ground breaker, was widely accepted. However, surveying is a dynamic profession with each new development just one step ahead of the next, and updating became critical. In addition, the editors received constructive criticism about the first edition that needed to be addressed. So, while the objective of The Handbook remains intact, the logical evolution of the profession, along with the need to recognize constructive criticism, led to the second edition. chapters have been added on water boundaries, boundary law, and geodetic positioning New satellites. The chapter on land data systems was rewritten to provide a dramatic updating of information, thus broadening the coverage of The Handbook. The same may be said for the state plane coordinate chapter. The material on public lands and construction surveying was reorganized as well. Appendices were added to tabulate some information that was buried in the earlier edition in several places. Numerous other changes were incorporated to help the handbook retain its profession-wide scope, one step beyond the scope of an upper-division college textbook. Along with the most sophisticated techniques and equipment, the reader can find information on techniques once popular and still important. Four new authors are welcomed to the list of contributors: Grenville Barnes, R. B. Buckner, Donald A. Wilson, and Charles D. Ghilani.

The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) is the means to assemble geographic information that describes the arrangement and attributes of features and phenomena on the Earth. This book advocates the need to make the NSDI more robust. The infrastructure includes the materials, technology, and people necessary to acquire, process, store, and distribute such information to meet a wide variety of needs. The NSDI is more than hardware, software, and data; it is the public foundation on which a marketplace for spatial products will evolve.