** Legal coordinates as a solution to an irreversible shortage of surveyors
Most professions, including the spatial sciences, are experiencing an increasing skills shortage. The shortage is most pronounced in the engineering and kindred professions such as surveying. The authors argue that the current shortage of surveyors is not a short-term phenomena which will correct itself in the normal cycle of supply and demand. The paper will explain how the decline in the number of surveyors is driven by demographics and may be irreversible. While other branches of the spatial sciences are also experiencing a shortage they have recruitment options which surveying has deliberately denied itself through legislation. If surveyor numbers are to be maintained at an adequate level to meet demand the profession may have to ‘lower the bar’ for new graduates. If demand, driven by current legislation and surveying paradigms, cannot be met, even after changes to eligibility, then it is incumbent on our generation to effect fundamental changes before the ‘system’ fails. With the use of GPS technology and Continuously Operating Reference Systems (CORS), the time is right to change not just how we measure but also what we measure. The paper suggests what some of these changes could be and aims to reopen the debate on legal coordinates in the light of a new emerging situation – an irreversible shortage of surveyors.