Land is where most activities of earth occur. People define nations based
on the land they were born or occupied and land today, unfortunately, is the
main source of conflicts and wars around the globe.
Commission 7 of FIG focuses on the economic, social and environmental
challenges for surveyors in managing land rights, restrictions and
responsibilities. Throughout the history of humanity, surveyors have played
a fundamental role in defining where in the geographical space land rights
are. In many cases, cadastre surveyors are active participants of systems,
processes and institutions to assign, transfer and protect land rights.
The cadastre, which is the inventory of lands of any jurisdiction, is the
heart of a land management system. Commission 7, therefore, focuses its
efforts on surveyors that work in the field of design and developed cadastre
system as well as other parts of the overall land management system of a
nation or sub-national jurisdiction. Topics that are often discussed by
Commission 7 activities and publications include:
land tenure in a diversity of cultures and societies
cadastre and land registration
reforming the cadastre legal framework, governance arrangements and
digital systems
security of land tenure, data and information as well as policies
for access to information by citizens
Fit-For-Purpose and pro-poor land administration /low-cost models
Models and strategies to involve the private sector in the provision
of services within a land management system, such as PPPs
new technologies for remote and in-situ data acquisition on land
rights / social media and third-party data capture / crowdsourcing /
role of landowners
land use and land policy
valuation and taxation of land / land markets
multi-dimensional and multi-temporal cadastre
impact of climate change and disasters on land rights
standards in land administration
capacity building in land administration
Mission statement:
Fair, equitable, transparent land rights, restrictions and
responsibilities are a key component of most developed societies and a focus
of developing nations in order to improve social and economic conditions of
their nations. Commission 7 mission is to work with surveyors and other
related technical experts from all nations to provide a platform to discuss
challenges, explore new technologies, generate new ideas and support the
development of a stronger cadastre surveying profession across the world.
The main desired outcome of the Commission 7 is supporting cadastre
surveying profession on improving their relevant cadastre and land
management systems in such a way that the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) are met.
To achieve this, the main output of Commission 7 are technical
publications that are developed in a participative manner among FIG members.
Other outputs include events, such as the Annual Meetings, as well as
participation in key international forums such as the UN-GGIM, UN FAO,
UN-Habitat and the World Bank Land and Poverty conference.
Overall Commission Plan
For the next four-year, Commission 7 is intended to build from existing
achievements in the Commission in previous years while tackling the new
challenges facing the cadastre profession. We believe at the Commission that
it is time to focus on those topics that are of concern of surveyors around
the world and offer a platform for discussion to ensure cadastre surveyors
have the necessary tools to evolve into prosperity in the new approaches
across the world for land management.
During the next 4 years, the Commission will put an effort to ensure the
views of surveyors are heard by governments across the globe as well as by
international organizations and donors such as the United Nation and all its
agencies, The World Bank and all other multilateral development banks and
donor organizations such as the European Commission, USAID, Millennium
Challenge Corporation, DFID, DFAT, AFD, SDC and many more. To achieve this,
commission 7 will work during events of these organizations and FIG to
ensure there is constant communication between officers and agendas are
coordinated.
Commission 7 proposes the development of this Work Plan under three
guiding principles:
Building from previous achievements within the Commission and FIG
Support the overall FIG plan with high-level of coordination and
communication with all FIG instances including the Presidency,
Vice-Presidencies and other Commissions
Always represent the views and needs of surveyors and when
differences exist to act as an enabling platform for discussion and
consensus
To achieve this Work Plan and contribute to its mission, Commission 7 has
the following objectives for the period 2019 – 2022:
to promote the importance of sustainable land management
infrastructures as being essential for sustainable development and
economic growth to facilitate the understanding of innovative and
advanced technologies in cadastre and land management
to raise awareness of the role of surveyors in land management
matters to the public and among stakeholders by developing workshops and
other events where open discussions are conducted
to identify mechanisms to follow the progress of cadastre and land
management systems and its contribution to achieving the SDGs
To explore more efficient mechanisms to fund improvements and
expansions of land management systems, including the participation of
private surveyors in the provision of specific systems under PPP
arrangements
to produce publications that enhance the ability of surveyors to
address new challenges
From an operational perspective, FIG Commission 7 proposes to have 4
Working Groups during the next four years (maximum 4 actives at any one
time). These working groups are:
Cadastre Technologies and the digital Twin
Fit for purpose
Cadastre template and the SDGs
The role of the Cadastre Surveyor
Working Groups
Working Group 7.1 – Cadastre Technologies and Smart City (2 years)
Policy Issues
There are multiple technologies being offered for surveyors as part of
their activities in the development of cadastre and land management systems.
Many of these technologies are unknown to many surveyors, and there is
limited understanding of the role, if any, of these technologies.
To address this, working group 7.1 will focus on exploring these new
technologies with a critical eye and on building capacity within the
surveying community to ensure the best use of the technology and the
competitiveness of cadastre surveyors in the market.
Digital twin and Smart City, in particular, are emerging as key topics to
improve transportation, energy, social safety and to decrease pollution
caused by climate change and urbanization. To solve these problems, total
efforts are being made on the smart city construction with all the latest
technologies such as Drones, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Robot
Technology, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Technology for
the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And a smart city can be
completed using the platform base called the Digital Twin.
Finally, smart cities are being built to solve the problems of cities
that have reached their limits and to ensure sustainability, and eventually,
smart cities will change the paradigm of urbanization around the world with
the continuing growth of cities and the construction of human-centred smart
cities that improve the quality of citizen’s life.
Working Group 7.2 – Fit-for-purpose (FFP) implementation (4 years)
Policy Issues
Many people do not have tenure security. Less than 30% of land rights are
documented. Linking people to polygons of land should happen in a fair way.
The Fit-For-Purpose (FFP), Land Administration approach, argues for
cost-effective and time-efficient, transparent, scalable and participatory
land administration.
During the previous terms, the Commission contributed to the development
of the approach and underlined the importance of FFP as a mechanism to
optimise resources and, therefore, expand the coverage of land
administration system.
A great understanding and adoption of the concept are being
achieved. However, further work is required for improving implementation
mechanisms. In particular, methods and procedures are needed to identify
purposes and selecting the best fit for each situation and to find ways to
accommodate to legal national frameworks and to gain legal security for
landowners by visible agreement by decision makers.
This working group will focus on collecting experiences and lessons from
projects in the world where principles of the FFP approach were applied. The
experiences and results will be discussed and shared. This will support
surveyors understand better how to implement FFP in cadastre and land
management systems. This working group will also work on improving the
understanding of FFP in the broader surveying community and highlights where
improved capacities are needed to ensure surveyors maintain the relevance of
participation in land administration systems. These two tasks will help the
working group to contribute to the further development of FFP.
Working Group 7.3 – Cadastral Template 2.0 and the SDGs (4 years)
Policy issues
Since 2003, and by mandate of Resolution 4 of the 16th UNRCC-AP in
Okinawa, Japan, Commission 7 with the support of Melbourne University has
maintained a repository of information about cadastre systems across the
world in the website www.cadastraltemplate.org. Commission 7 members have
been instrumental in maintaining this information and today there is
information for over 50 countries. The relevance of the Cadastral Template
platform has been renewed by the United Nations GGIM expert meeting in New
York (2018) in where a resolution was approved to support use as a
supporting mechanism to track the progress on achieving the sustainable
development goals.
Joint Working Group – Urban Challenges (Joint Working Group with
Commission 8 and 9)
Introduction
According to the United Nations1 urbanization prospects, by 2050 68 % of
the world’s population will be living in urban areas. To ensure a
sustainable development and ensure access to services for all, including the
vulnerable, requires considerable effort from all involved. It touches upon
themes such as urban resilience (social well-being, health, services,
climate), informal settlements, affordable housing and financial
sustainability among others.
Policy issues
Scope and analyse current and future challenges for communities in
small, medium, large, and megacities, in terms of urban resilience,
climate change, housing and informal settlements, and fiscal health.
Investigate principles of traditional tribal communalism and
understand how those principles can be successfully reintroduced into
contemporary residential development.
Explore current practices around the globe for tackling urban
housing issues and combine existing research which forecast future
practices.
Investigate critical success factors of existing high-density living
arrangements (environmental, social, legal, etc).
Contribute to the dissemination of best practices of how spatial
planning can contribute to address the present and future urban
challenges.
Investigate the potential contribution of land-based finance to
addressing these urban challenges.
Develop an audit tool for the assessment of sustainable municipal
finance, fiscal health and land-based value capture tools in relation to
the urban challenges.
Posit alternative future design models and provide guidance for
governments, municipalities, communities and professionals on
incorporating these models into current practises for sustainable,
spatially informed, and sociable city-living.
Chair
Erwin van der Krabben (Netherlands)
e.vanderkrabben[at]fm.ru.nl
James Berghan (New Zealand)
james.berghan[at]postgrad.otago.ac.nz
Claire Buxton (New Zealand)
clairelouisebuxton[at]gmail.com
