The Coordinates Are Changing: What the Modernized National Spatial Reference System Means for Surveying
If you hear that every official latitude, longitude, and elevation in the United States is changing, it sounds as though the country itself is moving.
In a sense, it is—but that isn't really what is happening here.
The National Geodetic Survey (NGS), part of NOAA, is in the process of modernizing the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), the framework that provides the fundamental positioning information used throughout the United States. That means the numbers we use to describe precise locations and elevations will eventually be referenced to a new, more accurate system.
According to a recent Space Daily report, differences between coordinates in the existing and modernized systems could reach several meters in some locations and circumstances, even though the physical point on the ground has not moved at all.
For surveyors, engineers, GIS professionals, developers, transportation agencies, utilities, and anyone working with precise spatial information, this is a significant transition.
First: Your Property Corner Isn't Moving
One of the most important things to understand is that the modernization of the NSRS does not mean property corners, buildings, roads, or infrastructure are suddenly shifting several feet.
The reference framework used to describe their locations is changing.
Think of it like replacing an old ruler with a more precise one. The object being measured has not changed, but the measurement used to describe it may.
The United States currently relies heavily on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) for horizontal positioning and the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88) for elevations.
Those systems were developed using the best technology available at the time. Modern GNSS technology, satellite observations, gravity measurements, and our improved understanding of the Earth's center of mass now allow positions and elevations to be determined much more accurately.
NGS has therefore been developing a modernized NSRS that will ultimately replace these older datums.
Why Does the United States Need a New System?
Surveying has changed dramatically since NAD 83 and NAVD 88 were established.
Traditional geodetic control relied heavily on a nationwide network of physical survey monuments—benchmarks, brass disks, rods, and other marks installed in the ground.
There are more than a million such marks across the country.
But physical control points have limitations. They can be damaged, destroyed, disturbed by construction, affected by ground movement, or simply become difficult to locate.
Modern positioning increasingly relies on GNSS observations and continuously operating reference stations, allowing surveyors to access highly accurate geodetic control without depending exclusively on a monument installed decades earlier.
The modernized NSRS represents what NGS describes as a major shift in how the national reference system is accessed and maintained.
And Elevations Are Changing, Too
The modernization isn't limited to latitude and longitude.
NAVD 88—the system behind countless published elevations, engineering plans, flood studies, benchmarks, and infrastructure projects—will eventually be replaced by a new geopotential datum.
One reason is that NAVD 88 contains known inconsistencies when compared with today's more accurate gravity-based understanding of the Earth's surface.
To improve the vertical reference system, NGS conducted the Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum (GRAV-D) project, collecting airborne gravity measurements across the United States.
Those measurements helped support development of the new gravity-based vertical reference framework.
For engineering and surveying professionals, that matters because seemingly simple words like “elevation” always depend upon a defined vertical datum.
A number without the correct datum information can be meaningless—or worse, misleading.
Coordinates Will Increasingly Have a Time Component
Another important change is the concept of epoch.
The Earth's surface is not static. Tectonic plates move, land subsides, and other geophysical processes gradually change precise positions.
The modernized NSRS is designed to account for that reality.
NGS currently plans to use 2020.00 as the first reference epoch for reference epoch coordinates.
That means high-accuracy coordinate information will increasingly need to answer not only:
Where is this point?
but also:
When does this coordinate represent its position?
For everyday navigation, that distinction may not matter much.
For precision surveying, geodetic control, infrastructure, mapping, and engineering, it absolutely can.
What Happens to Existing Survey Monuments?
They aren't going away.
Survey monuments throughout the United States will remain valuable physical evidence and can continue to be occupied and observed.
What changes is their role.
Instead of the national reference framework being fundamentally dependent upon a massive network of monuments in the ground, access to the modernized system will rely much more heavily on GNSS technology, reference stations, updated models, and NGS processing tools.
This is an important distinction: the monuments remain, but the framework used to determine their official coordinates is changing.
The Transition Is Happening Now—but the New System Is Not Yet Official
As of September 2026, NAD 83 and NAVD 88 remain part of the current official NSRS.
On September 15, 2026, NGS announced the public beta release of core products and tools supporting the modernized NSRS. Surveyors, engineers, GIS professionals, agencies, software developers, and other geospatial users are being encouraged to test these tools and provide feedback.
NGS specifically cautions that the beta products are preliminary and should not yet be used for authoritative or operational purposes.
There is also an important date approaching for the surveying community.
NGS has announced that January 13, 2027 will be the deadline for submitting geodetic survey projects that create or update control within the current NSRS. Existing tools will continue to be available during the transition, but new submissions into the current system will stop after that date.
Why This Matters to AJC Clients
For many property owners and developers, the change may initially be invisible.
But behind nearly every modern development project is spatial information.
Surveying and engineering projects routinely depend upon:
Boundary and topographic survey data
GNSS observations
Horizontal and vertical control
GIS datasets
Floodplain information
Utility mapping
Construction staking
Transportation design
Site development plans
Elevation certificates and FEMA-related work
Coordinate transformations between different reference systems
As the NSRS transition progresses, professionals will need to know which datum, reference frame, coordinate system, and epoch their information represents.
Mixing coordinate information from different reference systems without properly transforming the data could potentially create discrepancies that are significant in precision surveying and engineering work.
This is one reason professional surveying involves much more than obtaining a GPS coordinate.
Surveying Has Always Been About Establishing Reliable Reference
Technology has changed considerably since America's earliest national surveys.
Chains and transits gave way to total stations. Static GPS evolved into today's multi-constellation GNSS equipment. Paper field books became digital data collectors, point clouds, drones, GIS databases, and three-dimensional models.
But the fundamental purpose remains the same:
Establishing reliable measurements that allow people to understand exactly where something is—and how it relates to everything around it.
The modernization of the National Spatial Reference System is the next major evolution of that process.
At Abbie Jones Consulting, PSC, our surveying and engineering teams understand that accurate spatial information begins with understanding the reference system behind the numbers. As the industry transitions toward the modernized NSRS, AJC will continue monitoring NGS guidance, software changes, coordinate transformation procedures, and evolving surveying standards to help ensure our work remains accurate, defensible, and compatible with the systems our clients rely upon.
Because when coordinates change, knowing why they changed matters just as much as knowing the new number.
Sources & Credits
Primary story inspiration:Space Daily Editorial Team. “The United States Is Replacing Every Official Latitude, Longitude and Height It Publishes…” Space Daily, September 10, 2026.
Technical and transition information:National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Geodetic Survey. “Modernizing the National Spatial Reference System.” Updated September 15, 2026.
National Geodetic Survey. “Release of the Modernized NSRS.”
National Geodetic Survey. “New Datums Frequently Asked Questions.”
National Geodetic Survey. “Key Milestones — New Datums.”
This article is intended for general informational purposes. Datum, coordinate-system, elevation, and geodetic-control requirements should be evaluated for the specific project and jurisdiction involved.
Abbie Jones Consulting, PSCSurveying • Engineering • Solutions
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