Setting CORS device onto it's stand.

ADWR team constructs new CORS data-gathering site, adding precision and accuracy to the AZCORS Network and the National CORS Network

Published
March 20, 2025
Steel poles are driven into the ground to form the support structure

Like so many of the physical sciences, the massive project to conduct an accurate geodetic survey – to measure and map large areas of the country with real precision –requires staggering amounts of data.

NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) provides the framework for all positioning activities throughout the nation. Its network produces enhanced post-processed coordinate accuracies that can approach a few centimeters, both horizontally and vertically.

That framework includes NOAA’s Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) Network, which effectively supports three-dimensional programming, meteorology, space weather and geophysical applications throughout the U.S.

To make such a vast system work effectively, a great many data-gathering stations are needed.

Which is why a team of ADWR field researchers braved cold and blustery early-March weather to venture out to a field near Trimbly Wash west of the Agua Fria River on the far west side of the Valley.

There, the team spent the day erecting a new CORS site that, once operational, would contribute still more data – and, so, still greater precision - to the network.

The steel poles are welded together to create the brace monument

It’s for any sort of high-level surveying or mapping that people do, said ADWR Hydrogeologist Brian Conway, who led the installation.

So these sites operate 24/7, 365 days a year, providing data streams to our servers. That data is pushed out to the end-users for both real-time and post-processing the data.

Conway noted that one of the uses of the data is monitoring for subsidence activity throughout the state.

The Arizona portion of the network is managed by ADWR. Dubbed AZCORS, the in-state system consists of 37 State-managed CORS sites and 15 CORS sites managed and operated by EarthScope and the National Park Service, two other CORS Networks in Arizona, for a total of 51 CORS sites.

Each CORS station consists of a mounting pole, a GNSS receiver, a GNSS antenna, a cellular router, and associated electronics.

The Arizona-based CORS sites provide high-precision survey data and constitute the backbone of the geodetic network for Arizona – data that is used by Federal, State, county, and local agencies, commercial and private entities, and the public.

The data is used for any type of program, project, and/or application that requires accurate horizontal and vertical data such as surveying, mapping, infrastructure, and emergency response.

ADWR operates and maintains two virtual servers and software to operate the AZCORS network and distribute the data to other Federal, State, County, and Local agencies, commercial and private entities, and the public.  Each CORS station consists of a mounting pole, a GNSS receiver, a GNSS antenna, a cellular router, and associated electronics.