Structural health monitoring is a synthesis of geodetic and civil engineering methods of measuring, processing and analyzing data. All constructed buildings are subjected to displacements and deformations that can cause damage or even demolition of the building, which endangers people's lives and causes great material damage. Geodesy plays an important role in the technical monitoring of objects, but this fact does not diminish the importance of physical methods of monitoring, nor can it be argued that one method is more important than another. Each of the above-mentioned methods used for technical monitoring of high dams has its significance and only the joint application of all methods can provide an adequate description of the behaviour of the objects due to the influence of various external and internal factors. This paper will describe the history of high dams monitoring, the role of geodesy in monitoring, current trends, legal frameworks governing the monitoring, and the situation in education regarding this area of geodesy.