hrmmmm - my answer is speculative at best so take it with a grain of salt
my perception is that the devs don't want there to be 'easy' modes in the game hence no minimap, and the cartography skill is as much in the accuracy of the cartographer as it is through any in game mechanism
that said i expect that there will be ways to survey both above and below ground to prevent the kind of calamity you describe from occurring
potentially some kind of measuring devices and/or levels etc