Michel Dennis, Past-Chair of the UESI Surveying and Geomatics Division Executive Committee, has been working on an effort to eliminate the U.S. Survey Foot. This obscure, decades-old unit of measurement is slightly longer than the International Survey Foot because of a slight difference in the number of decimal places, which becomes a problem over long distances. In addition, only parts of the country use this foot while others and the rest of the world use the International unit.
The UESI Board of Governors has recently agreed to support the elimination of the U.S. Survey Foot.
For more information about this issue, see these recent articles:
- Newstalk's Moncrieff Show (Irish radio show) (Sep 11, 2020). [https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-moncrieff/americas-two-feet]
- Arizona Star (Sep 5, 2020). [https://tucson.com/news/local/arizona-surveyor-thinks-america-can-stand-on-one-foot/article_0d82b74f-bb9e-57e2-a1e6-214d9f342c9f.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1]
- New York Times (Aug 18, 2020). [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/science/foot-surveying-metrology-dennis.html]
- Scientific American (Jun 1, 2020). [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/multistate-disagreement-over-the-length-of-the-foot-to-end/]
- The Associated Press (Dec 15, 2019). [https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/us-going-international-route-for-official-foot-measurement-1915219/]