Grids & Datums Saint Lucia by Clifford J. Mugnier, C.P., C.M.S.

The cannibal Carïbs replaced all of the Arawak land is controlled by only 0.17 percent of tor at origin mo = 0.9995, the False Easting = inhabitants of St. Lucia around 800-1,300 A.D. the farmers, most of whom are absentee 400 km and there is no False Northing. The These tribes called the island of St. Lucia owners. Skewed land distribution has long datum origin coordinates on the BWI Grid are: “Ioüanalao” and “Hewanorra”, meaning been recognized as a major constraint to X = 514218.711m, and Y = 1515586.182 m. “there is where the iguana is found,” long agrarian reform and the alleviation of rural In 1998, John N. Wood of St. Lucia College before it was named by Christopher Colum- poverty.” This is a common theme in much in the Caribbean provided some local con- bus during his fourth voyage to the West of the world; I have been involved in land trol on St. Lucia so that I could work up a 3- Indies in 1502. Columbus did not land on the titlelization projects in South America for parameter datum shift for the island. Cou- island, and the first attempts to settle on the the same reasons, and photogrammetry with pling his classical survey data from DCS with island by the French and the English were GPS control is the common thread to imple- GPS data observed by the U.S. National Geo- violently repulsed during most of the 17th menting the solution. The Institute of Sur- detic Survey (NGS), which was provided to century. Finally, the town of Soufrière was veyors St. Lucia was founded in September me by David Doyle, I found three points in permanently founded at the end of that cen- 2003 and is the latest development of a long common between the two data sets. The tury, and in 1746, France officially recog- history of surveying and mapping of the is- shift from St. Lucia Lighthouse 1955 Datum nized it as the first town on St. Lucia. The land dating back to the 1771 survey of the to the WGS 84 Datum is then: ∆X = –134 m, island was alternately held by the British Bexton and Forrestierre areas. ∆Y = +119 m, ∆Z = +314 m. The fit of these and the French seven times over 150 years The British Directorate of Colonial Sur- three points was excellent and is probably before it was finally ceded in the Treaty of veys (DCS), later the Directorate of Over- good to better than a meter for the northern Paris to the British in 1814. seas Surveys and now the Ordnance Survey third of the island around the capitol city of Now an independent state of the Wind- of the United Kingdom, first published Castries. ward Islands, St. Lucia has a total land area of 1:25,000 scale topographic maps of the is- Ô 606 square kilometers, it has a coastline of land in 1958. Cliff Mugnier teaches Surveying, Geodesy, 158 km, and the highest point is Mount Gimie The first astronomic position was at Vieux and Photogrammetry at Louisiana State Uni- (950 m). The island’s terrain is mostly moun- Fort (Old Fort), on Vieux Fort Bay located at versity. He is the Chief of Geodesy at LSU’s tainous with some broad fertile valleys, and the southern end of the island, and likely Center for GeoInformatics (Dept. of Civil and is 3.5 times the size of Washington, D.C. The observed with an astrolabe. The current geo- Environmental Engineering), and his geo- CIA World Factbook estimates the current detic system is known as St. Lucia Light- detic research is mainly in the subsidence of population as of July 2004 at 164,213. house 1955 Datum, and the origin point at Louisiana and in Grids and Datums of the According to the Organization of Ameri- DCS 3 (near the southern town of Laborie) world. He is a Board-certified Photogram- can States (OAS), “An estimated 7,000 farm- is: Φ = 13º 42' 35" N, Λ = –60º 56' 37" W, o o metrist and Mapping Scientist (GIS/LIS), and ers in Saint Lucia actively cultivate bananas, the elevation H = 222.19 m, the reference o he has extensive experience in the practice the largest source of the country’s employ- azimuth to Cannelles (DCS 9) α = 30º 28' 52", o of Forensic Photogrammetry. ment and foreign exchange. Yet over 75 per- and the ellipsoid of reference is the Clarke cent of these farmers own 10 acres of land or 1880 (modified) where a = 6,378,249.145 m The contents of this column reflect the views of the less. This is not unusual in Saint Lucia, where and 1/f = 293.465. The British West Indies author, who is responsible for the facts and accuracy of 92.7 percent of all farmers control only 24 (BWI) Grid for St. Lucia is on the Gauss-Krüger the data presented herein. The contents do not neces- sarily reflect the official views or policies of the Ameri- percent of the land. At the opposite end of Transverse Mercator projection where the can Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing λ and/or the Louisiana State University Center for the scale, about 50 percent of all cultivable central meridian o = –62º W, the scale fac- GeoInformatics (C4G).

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