Users of Mapping Grid of Australia (MGA) coordinates need to be aware that Geoscience Australia has adopted a new origin of coordinates as of 1st January 2020 as the continent of Australia is moving north easterly at a rate of about 7 centimeters per year.

The new origin of coordinates (datum) is known as Geocentric Datum of Australia 2020 (GDA2020), and the prior datum is known as GDA1994.

What this means is that any design project or survey plans based on the earlier GDA1994 datum will not agree with MGA coordinates derived from systems which have MGA coordinates based on GDA2020 by about 1.8 metres.

The critical thing is you must know what geocentric datum your projects coordinate system is based on, otherwise a significant error may be introduced.



If you are unsure about how this may affect you send a query to us by clicking here