Creating parcels with natural boundaries

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

A natural boundary is a parcel boundary that is formed by a natural feature. The most common example of a natural boundary is the bank of a river bed.

Natural boundary depicted on a plat (record of survey)

In the parcel fabric, natural boundaries are referred to as line strings and can be created using the Line String located on the Parcel Details dialog box.

Steps:

To create a new parcel with a natural boundary, follow these steps:
1. In an edit session in ArcMap, create a new parcel and begin traversing in your parcel lines.
2. To traverse in the natural boundary, click the Line String tool on the Parcel Details dialog box and begin digitizing in your natural boundary.
3. If the line string does not end on an existing parcel point, right-click and click Finish Digitizing to finish digitizing the line string.
All segments digitized are represented as a single line string in the lines grid.
Tip:

To digitize in a series of line strings, click the end point of the previous line string, right-click, then click Restart Digitizing.

Note:

The line accuracy of a natural boundary is automatically set to accuracy category 6, which is the lowest accuracy category. Line strings should have low accuracy categories, as their boundaries are not precise or accurate, and thus the boundary should not have too much influence on the outcome of a fabric least-squares adjustment.

4. To edit a line string, click the Bearing field of the line string row in the Lines grid and click the Line String tool on the Parcel Details dialog box.
Vertices will become visible on the line string parcel boundary. You can click a vertex to drag the vertex and modify the line string shape.

Edit line string vertices

You can also right-click the line string to add vertices and delete vertices.

Tip:

To convert a sequence of individual parcel boundaries to a single line string, select the lines that represent the line string in the Lines grid of the Parcel Details dialog box, right-click, then click Create line string.

Tip:

To split a line string into a series of individual parcel lines, right-click the line string row in the Lines grid of the Parcel Details dialog box and click Split line string.