Dr Rohan Bennett
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-information (ITC), University of Twente
The Netherlands
[email protected]
The 'cadastral divide' describes the gap between countries that have effective land administration systems and those that do not. Here, we look at challenges on both sides with a view to bridging understandings, identifying shared challenges and determining where cadastral research and practice is headed in the near future
Many of the world's most developed property markets sit idle today: land values are down, new loan approvals have fallen and fewer building permits are being issued. Revival attempts through tax breaks and reduced transaction costs appear to have failed, at least for the short term.
What caused this stagnation? Mainstream media tells the story of the subprime mortgage collapse in the United States, of the resultant freeze in global credit supply, of government funded stimulus packages and more recently, of the European debt crisis and subsequent bailout attempts. We're all familiar with the key events, players and processes.
In parallel, the geospatial community has undertaken its own analysis. In particular, those professionals involved in land administration have asked the question: "What role did our cadastres and land registries play in all this?"
An idea of Peter Dale provides a useful tool for framing the discussion. Dale is a prominent land administrator and academic from the United Kingdom. He has helped drive many developments in land administration over the last 40 years. In 2000, Dale developed a model that demonstrated the link between our cadastres and land registries on one hand and the components of a land market on the other. The model suggests that any land market is underpinned by three pillars (Figure 1): land registration and cadastre, market-based land valuation and financial services. Using this approach, it is fair to say that most mainstream analysis assigns blame for the property market collapse to the financial services pillar: inappropriate lending and credit access mechanisms created an inflated property market bubble that ultimately burst around 2007/8.
Meanwhile, some land administrators have argued that a portion of the blame should be assigned to pillar 1. In 2009, Daniel Roberge and Bengt Kjellson suggested that the lack of a good property rights infrastructure (i.e. land register and cadastre) in the United States contributed to the collapse of its property market and led to the subsequent contamination of international stock markets. In 2010, David Cowan and Donald Buhler, amongst others, demonstrated how a mortgage-disclosure- contagion-early-warning-system could have been in place if land parcel data had been linked to mortgage data at a national level. All these authors assume that aggregated land information about the status of tenures and values was missing: this information should have been provided to decision makers by the land administration system. With this in mind, Dale's model might be considered a little static: it does not show the information flows and feedback loops that should be in place between the policy/legal framework, the three pillars and the players the land market.
To help explain the importance of these information flows, Nilofer Tambuwala and her co-authors added some dynamism to Dale's model. They suggested that the parcel level spatial and textual information held in a land administration system must be aggregated and fed directly to central macroeconomic decision makers. Using this information, appropriate decisions about fiscal and monetary policy can be made: the growth of the tree can be kept sustainable through a constant flow of good land information between land market players.
As simple as this model appears, it seems that only a very small percentage of the world's economies have it working. It is particularly difficult to achieve in federated countries where land administration might not be an activity of the central government. At any rate, more and more central governments are realising the importance and potential of maintaining what some are calling AAA or Triple A rated land information, that is, information that is authoritative, accurate and assured. A dynamic flow of AAA land information is an important factor in sustaining healthy land markets. Researchers from University of Melbourne's Centre for SDIs and Land Administration have championed the idea most recently. An argument could also be made that the information should be unambiguous and available to the public. In this way, the AAA concept would fully adhere to the old-school principles of land registration as laid out by Dowson and Sheppard and Simpson, amongst others.
The demand for AAA (AA) land information is driving many countries to invest much effort into their land information systems. We're seeing projects aimed at creating more spatially accurate cadastres, object-oriented cadastres (that is, inclusion of other forms of property rights, restrictions and responsibilities), 3D cadastres, real-time cadastres, interoperable cadastres (between nations and states) and 'greening' the cadastre. All these are cadastral design elements that support achievement of the AAA (AA) vision. There is much discourse already available and perhaps a hint of healthy competition amongst countries. The stakes are high: most agree that countries that are able to get the design elements implemented will be far better placed to manage the 'information' and 'green' economies of the 21st century. Of course, there are some assumptions in all this: better assessment frameworks will be needed to determine whether these investments in AAA (AA) land information actually deliver on the benefits promised.
Meanwhile, it needs to be remembered that the countries charging towards the AAA (AA) vision are a minority. As Daniel Roberge recently observed in the media, they probably only represent around 30 countries globally and less than 25% of the world's estimated 6 billion land parcels. In essence, there exists a 'cadastral divide': the remaining 160 countries (or so) and the 4 billion land parcels within them face a whole different set of challenges. In these countries, the basic benefits of land administration, as laid out by Prof. Joe Henssen of the Netherlands, are not being met (Figure 3). In these countries, the lack of good land governance, including transparent land administration systems, is demonstrated to produce conflicts in peri-urban areas, slum formation, land grabbing, food insecurity, poor access to clean water and inadequate infrastructure provision. It is these countries where successful developments in land administration and geospatial science will have perhaps the greatest impact on economies.
But, what is going wrong in these contexts? After around 50 years of land administration projects, why are many tenures still not secure? There is much already known- the issues start at institutional and societal levels and run all the way down to the organisational and technical implementations that are put in place. Jaap Zevenbergen (ITC University of Twente) and Clarissa Augustinus (UN-Habitat), amongst others, suggest that at current rates it will take decades, if not centuries, to get anywhere near full coverage in many country contexts.
However, it seems that a paradigm shift is taking place- at least amongst geospatial and land administration professionals. There is now wide agreement that full title with accurately surveyed boundaries should not be attempted upfront in many contexts. The concept of the 'continuum of land rights' has taken hold: a staged or phased approach to delivering more secure land rights is needed. From a land administration perspective, this means, in the short term, that we need to develop and utilise faster, cheaper and more fit-for-purpose land administration designs. The range of new approaches and tools is emerging at a rapid pace. Tools already available include:
- The social tenure domain model (STDM) – a design approach that enables the capture of non-traditional forms of land tenure. The model is already implemented in off-theshelf software packages.
- Point cadastre – a fast cadastral approach that captures a single coordinate (potentially captured using handheld GNSS) to represent a parcel rather than a complete set of surveyed boundaries.
- Digital pen – a tool that greatly reduces transcription processes between the field and office, thus reducing errors and speeding up recordation time.
- Crowdsourced cadastre (or Cadastre 2.0) – an approach where citizens are trained to undertake adjudication, demarcation, surveying and recordation processes themselves using low cost processes and mobile technology.
- High resolution satellite imagery (HRSI) – for fast paced participatory adjudication and mapping programmes in rural areas.
- Low altitude remotely sensed imagery (LARSI) – imagery captured by lightweight and unmanned aircraft equipped with a camera, GNSS receiver and other positioning tools. Like HRSI, the imagery can be used to speed up adjudication and mapping programmes. The higher resolutions available enable utility in more built up areas.
- The pro-poor land recordation system – a set of transparent principles and processes developed by UN-Habitat that enable the recordation and maintenance of land interests in places where individuals might live on less than USD 2 a day.
These approaches represent just a small sample of a growing number of 'progressive' tools. Many others are still in development. It remains to be seen how great an impact these approaches can have on reducing the cadastral divide. Whilst many are at a technical level, they might provide a catalyst for overcoming inhibitors at institutional levels. Only time and the development of new assessment tools will tell us how successful they can be.
In the meantime, the push to utilise the cadastre beyond traditional juridical and fiscal functions continues. Since discussions on 'multipurpose cadastres' began in the early 1970s, the application of the cadastre in urban and rural planning, environmental management, law enforcement, delivery of educational services and so on, has been demonstrated. However, rapid population growth, urbanisation and climate change are driving a new range of applications. Cadastres can play a role in supporting food security; total tenure security (beyond mere legal instruments); post-conflict state building; housing production and even good governance (including operationalising transparency).
So, how can all this be summarised? First, the cadastral divide is a reality. In fact, the division is far more fragmented than presented here: all systems are at various states of establishment, renewal, maintenance or even decay. Second, whilst a divide is evident, by looking to both sides we see a bridge linking shared interests and challenges. These are the need for: system adaptation in order to support emerging societal roles; development of more holistic assessment tools for ensuring fit-for-purpose and construction of a range of design elements to support both pro-poor and more developed contexts (Figure 4). Third, and finally, overcoming the cadastral divide should be a focus for all. With the right mix of pragmatism and design selection, it can be reduced even in the short term. Geospatial practitioners and land administrators are encouraged to get involved: follow developments, share lessons and take part in bridging the divide.
