Article of the Month

FIG publishes each month the Article of the Month. This is a high-level paper focusing on interesting topic to all surveyors. This article can be picked up from an FIG conference or another event or it can be a paper written directly for this purpose.

List of the FIG Articles of the Month

2024

October 2024 is written by Asst. Professor Ts. Sr Dr. Nadzirah Hj. Zainordin et. al (Malaysia) The Emergence of the All Construction Performer to Drive Sustainable Construction and Internet of Thing (IoT): A Malaysian Perspective A case study by Commission 10 showcases how Malaysia's "all construction performer" model is driving the construction industry’s shift towards achieving sustainable development goals.

September 2024 is written by Janet Praise Tangadzani et al. (Zimbabwe) Application of UAV-based Photogrammetry in Monitoring Slope Deformations in Open Pit Mining Environments: A Systematic Review This paper was awarded the NavXperience AWARD and was presented during the FIG Working Week 2024 in Accra, Ghana. The paper focuses on the role of mine surveyors in monitoring slope deformations in open pit mining, highlighting the limitations of traditional survey methods.

August 2024 is written by Markus Schaffert and Torger Steensen, Germany: Demographic transition in aging neighborhoods: a GIS-based analysis from Germany's countryside. The paper was awarded the Survey Review Prize, and has passed through the reviewing and revision stage overseen by FIG, before being judged by members of the Editorial Board of Survey Review. The research examined the challenges faced by municipalities in Germany's aging single-family house neighborhoods, particularly in rural areas, due to limited demographic data.

July 2024 is written by Peter Bauer et al. (Austria): Interactive planning of GNSS monitoring applications with Virtual Reality The paper was awarded the Survey Review Prize, and has passed through the reviewing and revision stage overseen by FIG, before being judged by members of the Editorial Board of Survey Review. The research examined the mapping and analyses of existing polling units in the study area to provide scientific criteria for citing new polling units.

 June 2024 We are excited to present to you the opening speech by the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for this article of the month, delivered at the FIG Working Week 2024. The address elaborates over the theme of the Working Week: "Your World, Our World: Resilient Environment and Sustainable Resource Management for All". Read more here

May 2024 is a video recordings from the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary session Victoria Stanley, Senior Land Administration Specialist at the World Bank. Victoria Stanley talks about how the World Bank see land as integral to addressing climate change.
Read more and watch the videos

April 2024 are video recordings from the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary sessions. Juliana P. Blackwell, NOAA and Simone M. Lloyd, GISP, explains the mission to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts.
Read more and watch the videos

March 2024 are video recordings from the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary sessions of the four Platinum Corporate Members of FIG, Bentley, Esri, Leica and Trimble held a plenary presentation at the FIG Working Week 2023. Please dive into their considerations and thoughts for the future from their company perspective Read more and watch the videos 

January/February 2024 is written by Dimitrios BOLKAS, Matthew O’BANION, Jeffrey CHIAMPI, and Jordan LAUGHLIN, USA: Collaborative Virtual Reality for Surveying Education. The article is a peer-reviewed paper published and presented at the FIG Working Week 2023 in Orlando, Florida. This paper presents virtual reality implementations following two different pedagogical frameworks, the first assessment results of collaborative learning and evaluate the role of collaborative virtual reality to enhance student learning and support surveying education.

2023

December 2023 is wrtitten by Ken Lyons, Australia, Simulation Models to Test Improvement Proposals in Land Administration Before Investing The paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2023 and shows how Simulation models (digital twins) can be built and used to test proposed improvements for effectiveness and sustainability, before the final investment decision is made.

November 2023 is written by Umbidzai Chivizhe, Juliana Useya and Reason Mlambo, Zimbabwe. Damage And Loss Assessment Due To Tropical Cyclone Idai’s Flooding Events In Chimanimani District The paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2023 and is a study about the damage and loss which came as a result of flooding in Chimanimani district due to tropical cyclone Idai in March 2019.

October 2023 is a video recording from the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary session Mickey Ng Nok Hang, Young Surveyors Network. Smarter Working in Digital Transformation "Fasten the seatbelts and get to new heights" says Mickey, presenting a perspective of the younger generation through a combination of technological innovation and new ways of thinking.

September 2023 is a video recording from the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary session Russell Romanella, USA: United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration Russell Romanella explores the current Human and Robotic Exploration Missions within NASA. He explores NASA's exploration of the solar system and beyond including Mars, Saturn, the asteroid belt, and NASA’s plan to return to the Moon and on to Mars.

August 2023 is a paper written by Johnson Oguntuase, Uchenna Nwankwo, Stephan Howden, USA: Affordable GNSS PPP Results as Constraints for Pressure Time Series Offshore. This peer reviewed paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2023 and awarded with the NavXperience Prize. In the article the authors describe a new water level measurement technique for tidal datum extension at offshore locations in addressing vandalization challenges with GNSS buoys. 

July 2023 is a recording of the FIG Working Week 2023 plenary session: Clarissa Augustinus: Global Land Outlook and Protecting our World. In this introduction and recording that is offered to you in this "Video of the Month Series" Clarissa Augustinus outlines some of the key climate challenges facing our planet and the vital role that surveyors play in addressing the climate crisis.

June 2023 is a recording of the FIG Congress 2022 Keynote: How the Land profession skills may thrive in the post 2020 pandemic world - Insights from across the Generations: Geography, Governance and Volunteering A panel of different generations with Victoria STANLEY, Marc VANDERSCHUEREN, Israel TAIWO, Shirley CHAPUNZA and Tomasz MALINOWSKI  share their insights on how all four of the generations in the work place will shape the next normal.

April 2023 is a paper written by John Brock, Australia: The Surveyor Pirate of the Caribbean
In this article John Brock takes you to the early days of the settlements in the USA together with land surveyor and architecht Barthelemy Lafon. The paper presents an excellent sample of surveys and edifices attributed to Lafon, along with tales of some of his raids of piracy. Fascinating... Learn and explore more about the host country of the FIG Working Week 2023

March 2023 is a recording of the FIG Congress 2022 Keynote: Geospatial Excellence for a Better Living - Digitalisation and Modern Surveying and Cadastre in a Post-Covid19 Era in which Ewa Surma, Rumyana Tonchovska and Paweł Hanus take the audience through their undertakings and experiences during these past years with the Covid19 pandemic, how the transformation has been handled, and what learnings can be drawn from this.

February 2023 is a both recording of the FIG Congress 2022 Keynote: Land Governance in support of the 2030 Global Agenda in which Stig Enemark and Paula Dijkstra speak about this topic and the article from Stig Enemark Responsible Land Governance and Secure Land Rights in Support of the 2030 Global Agenda.
This session will unfold the concept of responsible land governance and the importance of including all land, people and land rights at a countrywide scale. Further, the session will align the concepts with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and how FIG supports the SDGs. The agenda provides us a roadmap towards a more sustainable world. Providing leadership as FIG, as professional and as a citizen on the SDGs will be of great added value. This session sets the scene how you can actively contribute to volunteering for the future for our profession, society and our planet at the same time.

January 2023 is a recording of the FIG Congress 2022 Keynote: Urban Rural Partnership.
Urban Rural Partnership is more urgent than ever in the light of an ongoing or even increasing urban rural divide in developed as well as in developing countries. Central elements are the need for comprehensive land policies, reflecting a priority on spatial and economic integration, and the importance of considering governance, infrastructure and local capacity. Join our two distinguished keynote speakers through the urban rural land linkages.

2022

December 2022 is a recording of the FIG Congress 2022 Keynote: Technology and Visualtion for the future in which Rudolf Staiger and Robert Olszewski focus on the future technologies of geospatial data visualization and its role for surveyors and the role of GNSS measurements in future.

November 2022 is written by Adamu Bala et al. (Nigeria): Mapping and suitability analysis of existing electoral polling units in Katsina local government area of Katsina State, Nigeria.  The paper was awarded the Survey Review Prize, and has passed through the reviewing and revision stage overseen by FIG, before being judged by members of the Editorial Board of Survey Review. The research examined the mapping and analyses of existing polling units in the study area to provide scientific criteria for citing new polling units.

October 2022 Is written by Jelena Gabela, Guenther Retscher, Georg Gartner and Andrea Binn, Austria, Vassilis Gikas and Ioanna Spyropoulou, Greece, Regine Gerike, Germany, Rangajeewa Ratnayake, Amila Buddhika Jayasinghe, Loshaka Perera, Pradeep Kalansooriya, RMM Pradeep, Choolaka Hewawasam, Thilantha Dammalage and Vipula Abeyratne, Sri Lanka : Overview of the PBL in Geodesy, Geoinformatics and Transport Engineering Education. In this paper, the results of a workshop on e-learning and PBL pedagogy are presented. Examples for PBL courses in geodesy, geoinformatics and transport engineering from the literature and the seven participating project partners underpin the feasibility of the introduction of these new education methods. This paper was presented at the FIG Congress 2022 in Warsaw, Poland.

September 2022 Is written by Ion Anastasios Karolos, Stylianos Bitharis, Vasileios Tsikoukas, Christos Pikridas, Sotirios Kontogiannis, Theodosios Gkamas, Nikolaos Zinas, Greece: Proposed 4.0 Industrial Management System for daily operations that poses point cloud assets with annotated real-time sensory measurements and utilizes unsupervised alert logic. This paper presents a holistic industry 4.0 solution towards industrial maintenance. The study focuses on the oil refinery industry and presents their proposed maintenance system architecture, system implementation, technical and basic functional characteristics. This paper was presented at the FIG Congress 2022 in Warsaw, Poland.

August 2022 Is written by Kehinde Babalola, Simon Hull and Jennifer Whittal, South Africa: Assessing Land Administration Systems and their Legal Frameworks: A Constitutional Focus.  This study is aimed at LAS and the reform of its legal framework from a constitutional perspective. The study is significant for policymakers, professionals, and academics engaged in the reform of the LAS and its legal framework in a developing country SSA context. This article will be presented at the FIG Congress 2022 in Warsaw, Poland.

July 2022 Is written byDogus Guler and Tahsin Tomralioglu, Turkey:  3D Description of Condominium Rights in Turkey: Improving the Integrated Model of LADM and IFC. This article improves the previous conceptual model that links the classes of LADM and entities of the IFC schema such that it covers a detailed delineation of condominium rights. In 2021 Dogus Guler received the FIG Foundation Ph.D. scholarship incl a travel grant to the FIG Congress to present this successfully peer reviewed paper.

June 2022 Is written by Tony Burns, Australia, Fletcher Wright, United States, Kate Fairlie and Kate Rickersey, Australia:  How to Conceptualize a PPP for Land Administration Services: Understanding the Private Sector and Commercial Feasibility. This article uses the experience from drafting the Costing and Financing Land Administration Systems (CoFLAS) Tool (UN-HABITAT, 2015), drafting and piloting the Operational Toolkit, and the Land PPP consultation process (2018-2019), to provide practical take-aways for governments, development partners and private sector implementers. This paper is an updated version of earlier work published under the 2020 World Bank Annual Land and Poverty Conference and the 2020 FIG Working Week – both events having been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

May 2022 Is written by Eduard Escalona, Ana Senado, Maria Ruiz and Teresa Martinez, Span: EU Space Programmes for Geomatics.  This article provides and overview about the EU Space Programmes Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus, their synergies and applications for geomatics' users. This article will be presented at the FIG Congress 2022 in Warsaw, Poland.

April 2022 Is written by Charisse Griffith-Charles, Trinidad and Tobago: Use of Global Indicators and Cadastral Information for Tracking Gender and Tenure Issues in the Caribbean. The aim of this article is to explore the individual indicators such as the LANDex with a focus on gender disparities in land tenure. Sample sets extracted from Sain Lucia's land registration database were used to exaine whether gender disparity occurs in land tenure and if so, to what extent it occurs.

March 2022 Is written by Rosario Casanova, Carlos Andres Chiale and Mathilde Saravia, Uruguay: Data Privacy Protection and Geographic Data Use as an Answer to Covid-19.  This article aims to reflect on the relevance of geographic data use in the COVID-19 pandemic and its relationshop with the privacy rights of the people involved.

February 2022 Is written by Agung Indrajit, Peter van Oosterom, Bastiaan van Loenen, the Netherlands and M. Hasannudin Yusa and Deni Suwardhi, Indonesia:  Development and Usability Testing of the Participatory Urban Plan Monitoring Prototype for Indonesian Smart Cities based on Digital Triplets. This paper was part of the FIG Working Week in 2021. It focuses on the development of an application for participative monitoring of the implementation of urban plans which is crucial to detect challenges and evaluate alternative scenarios for intervention-making, achieving SDGs' targets and indicators.

January 2022 In this final  "Video of the Month" series. Reporter Ms. Pauline de Wilde talks with Frank Tierollf, Sisi Zlatanova, Noud Hooyman, Henk Scholten and Jan Bruijn about the concept ‘’Digital Twins’’. ”How can Digital Twin support to increase legal certainty?” and, is there a role for FIG to play? Read more and watch the video...

2021

December 2021 In a keynote session at the FIG e-Working Week 2021 Katriona Lord-Levins, Chief Success Officer, SVP at Bentley talks with Paula Dijkstra, Director a.i. of Kadaster International - co-conference director e-Working Week 2020 and Louise Friis-Hansen, FIG Director, about how to contribute to your own success, to the success of your work place and of your customers and clients, and how can you also help others to succeed Read more and watch the video...

November 2021 In this"Video of the Month Series"  three eminent speakers from the land administration field, Emmanuel Nkurunziza, Amy Coughenour Betancourt and Stig Enemark talked with Jaap Zevenbergen and Mila Koiva to take stock of about a decade of Fit for Purpose - Land Administration, FFP-LA; how it has progressed and what challenges lay ahead. Read more and watch the video...

October 2021 In October’s "Video of the Month" series Steven Ramage, Léa Bodossian and Benjamin Davis talk with Kate Fairlie about the impact the global coronavirus pandemic has had on the geospatial industry worldwide and the ways in which surveying and geospatial professionals have adapted to these unexpected circumstances. Read more and watch the video...

September 2021 In this recording that is offered to you in this "Video of the Month Series"  Narelle Underwood, Chitra Weddikkara, Paul Olomolaiye and Victoria Stanley talk with FIG Vice President Diane A Dumashie about what the surveying community can do to boost equality and ensure the land and property sector is sustainable and resilient. Read more and watch the video...

August 2021 The Article of the Month august is not a paper but a video recording of one of the keynote sessions at the FIG e-Working Week 2021. Greg Scott, Rosamond Carter Bing and Anders Sandin provides a basis and guide for developing, integrating, strengthening and maximizing geospatial information management and related resources. The IGIF focuses on location information and are important for a nation's development priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals. Read more and watch the video...

July 2021 The Article of the Month July is not a paper but a video recording of one of the keynote sessions at the FIG e-Working Week 2021. Founder and President of Esri - Environmental Systems Research Institute, Jack Dangermond talks with FIG President Rudolf Staiger, about the impactful latest trends in GIS software technology, how they impact surveying and the FIG community as well as thoughts and considerations on the future of the profession. Read more and watch the video...

June 2021 is written by Walter Timo de Vries, Germany. Identifying which human aspects play a crucial role in land consolidation processes The article introduces and analyses how which human aspects play a role in land consolidation processes. It provides a short synopses of three research experiences. These experiences in land consolidation are described at different scales.

May 2021 is written by Tea Duplančić Leder And Nenad Leder Croatia. Optimal Conditions for Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB) - Case Study of the Adriatic Sea The article examines the optimal conditions required for the implementation of the SDB method and tests them in the area of the middle Adriatic sea basin (Murter channel).

 April 2021 is written by Marie Fournier, Adèle Debray And Mathieu Bonnefond, France Innovative Tools and Strategies to Conciliate Floodplain Restoration Projects and Spatial Planning in France: the “Over-Flooding Easement” This paper is mainly based on the results of the FARMaine project. The authors analyzes the consequences of environmental public policies on agricultural land and practices in the Maine river basin (Région Pays de la Loire).

March 2021 is written by Greet Deruyter, Lars De Sloover, Jeffrey Verbeurgt, Alain De Wulf, Belgium And Sander Vos, The Netherlands Macrotidal Beach Monitoring (Belgium) using Hypertemporal Terrestrial Lidar Knowledge on natural sand dynamics is essential and the authors present first results achieved with currently used methodology. Next, they analyze the results from a 10-day measurement campaign and highlight the tide-dominated beach morphology. 

February 2021 is written by Georgios Kapogiannis, Tianlun Yang, Ryan Jonathan And Craig Matthew Hancock, China An Innovative Dynamic Gamificative BIM environment This paper is about how technology evolution through innovation and helped the team to develop a such Gamificative BIM environment that eventually could change the way humans interact and however improve the human information modeling experience.

January 2021 is written by Ryan Keenan, Australia, Allison Craddock, United States, Mikael Lilje, Sweden, Rob Sarib, Australia and Graeme Blick, New Zealand. A Global Survey of Reference Frame Competency in terms of Education, Training and Capacity Building (ETCB): Results, Analysis and Update This paper presents the results of a survey, and offers a brief analysis of the findings, outlines a summary of the issues and identifies a number of follow-on tasks for the UN-GGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy

2020

December 2020 is written by Lisette Mey, Netherlands And Laura Meggiolaro, Italy. Land Governance Lost in Translation - Exploring Semantic Technologies to Increase Discoverability of New Technologies & Data Language and technology barriers are a very serious constraint to effectively exchange and learn from land data, information and technologies. This paper presents experience with controlled vocabularies and the opportunities and challenges it can bring.

November 2020 is written by Ola Øvstedal, Norway A method to estimate a best fit trajectory from multiple individual trajectories This paper proposes a method on how to estimate a best fit trajectory based on available individual trajectories. Occasional observational blunders or failure in following the same physical path are addressed through statistical testing. The precision of the estimated trajectory is quantified in form of standard deviations.

October 2020 is written by Florian Thiery, Timo Homburg, Sophie Charlotte Schmidt, Germany, Martina Trognitz, Austria And Monika Przybilla, Germany SPARQLing Geodesy for Cultural Heritage – New Opportunities for Publishing and Analysing Volunteered Linked (Geo-)Data This paper gives a general introduction into the concept of Linked (Geo-)Data, followed by a Best Practice example of semantically modelled Ogam Stones in Wikidata.

September 2020 is written by David Mitchell, Australia; Winnie Shiu, Hong Kong Sar; Stig Enemark, Denmark; And James Kavanagh, United Kingdom Blended Learning in Support of Life-long Learning for Surveyors While blended learning is challenging to implement it offers many benefits and, when carefully developed, provides a range of learning options that suit many student learning styles and approaches. The benefits in blended learning for life-long learning is enhanced if education institutions, government, industry and professional institutions work together to develop online learning opportunities.

August 2020 is written by: Naa Lamkai Quaye-Ballard, Daniel Asenso-Gyambibi and Jonathan Quaye-Ballard, Ghana. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Topographical Mapping of Inaccessible Land Areas in Ghana: A Cost-Effective Approach This paper examines the suitability and accuracy of a topographical survey conducted with the combination of RTK-GPS instrument and a consumer grade UAV at an inaccessible tailings dam at Osino in the Eastern Region of Ghana

July 2020 is written by: Josip Križanović and Miodrag Roić Croatia. Formalisation of Cadastral System Data Dissemination Processes – Initial Studies This peer review paper should have been presented at the FIG Working Week 2020, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The aim of this paper is to explore the processes of cadastral system data dissemination regarding standardised and non-standardised uses of cadastral system data.

June 2020 is written by: Asmae Azzioui, Moulay Hafid Bouhamidi, Mustapha Mouadine And Mohammed Ettarid, Morocco. Innovative Approach for a Reliable Mapping of the Morocco’s Solar Resource. This peer review paper should have been presented at the FIG Working Week 2020, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The paper is about how the current Moroccan energy policy aims to develop and promote renewable and clean energy.This article traces all the results of research and practical manipulations carried out within this project.

May 2020 is written by: Ana Flávia Bastos and D.Eng. Lia Bastos, Brazil: Quantitative analysis of microplastics in coastal sediment in beaches of Spain and Brazil This peer review paper should have been presented at the FIG Working Week 2020, Amsterdam, Netherlands in the special session Mapping the Plastic. Based on the ESMARES Program methods, a comparative study of the amount of microplastics found on different beaches of the east coast of Spain, bathed by the Mediterranean Sea and the southern coast of Brazil, bathed by the Atlantic Ocean has been carried out.

April 2020 is written by: Kari Strande, Norway: Comprehensive Databases for Seabed Environment This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The article unique collaboration programme in Norway called MAREANO. The programme contribute to a knowledge based conservation and use of the resources at sea

March 2020 is written by: Prosper Washaya & Minyi Li, China: China’s Geospatial information industry fights against COVID-19 This article describes how geospatial information is being used effectively in a crisis situation; in this case fighting the COVID19 virus in China.

February 2020 is written by: Wioleta Krupowicz, Adrianna Czarnecka, Poland, Magdalena Grus, Netherlands:  Possibilities of implementing crowdsourcing initiatives in rural development programmes in Poland. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The article presents the possibilities of implementation of the idea of crowdsourcing in rural development programmes in Poland

January 2020 is written by Edi Meier, Inma Gutiérrez, Marco Baumann, Max Bosshard And Rainer Heeb, Switzerland: Detection of Service Pipes and the Risk of Collapsing Sinkholes at the Lake of Constance in Switzerland Using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Vietnam. The paper describes how Ground Penetrating Radar is used to document the present underground condition of the water front of the harbour promenade in Arbon (Lake of Constance) in Switzerland. This nondestructive method gives as a result images of the subsurface structures as well as of installations like service pipes.

2019

December 2019 is written by Christiaan Lemmen and Peter Van Oosterom, The Netherlands, Abdullah Kara, Turkey, Eftychia Kalogianni, Greece, Anna Shnaidman, Israel, Agung Indrajit, Indonesia, Abdullah Alattas, Saudi Arabia: The scope of LADM revision is shaping-up. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) has been ISO standard for the past 7 years and is now undergoing a review. This paper was presented at the 8th FIG Workshop on LADM, October 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and reports on the background, the development of Edition II, and the initial stage of the revision process where FIG Commissions 7 ‘Cadastre and Land Management’, 8 ‘Spatial Planning and Development’, and 9 ‘Valuation and the Management of Real Estate’; as well as ISO/TC211; IHO and OGC cooperate.

November 2019 is written by Pasi Häkli, Finland, Martin Lidberg, Sweden, Lotti Jivall, Sweden, Holger Steffen, Sweden, Halfdan P. Kierulf, Norway, Jonas Ågren, Sweden, Olav Vestøl, Norway, Sonja Lahtinen, Finland, Rebekka Steffen, Sweden and Lev Tarasov, Canada: New Horizontal Intraplate Velocity Model for Nordic and Baltic Countries This article was presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Vietnam. The paper describes the latest development of horizontal intraplate velocity model. The horizontal velocities of the model are comprised of the BIFROST GNSS velocity solution and a new GIA model.

October 2019 is written by Rohan Bennett and Eryadi Masli, Australia; Jossam Potel, Rwanda; Eva-Maria Unger, Austria; Chrit Lemmen and Kees De Zeeuw, Netherlands: Netherlands Cadastral Entrepreneurs Recognizing the Innovators of Sustainable Land Administration This paper ( presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Vietnam) seeks to ignite debate on the opportunities, challenges, and limitations of cadastral entrepreneurship – and to set an agenda for how to better incorporate the benefits of cadastral entrepreneurship into sustainable land administration. This article can also be a taste of and inspiration on what to expect at FIG Working Week 2020 www.fig.net/fig2020 

September 2019 is written by Nur Zurairah Abdul Halim, Zoher Nomanbhoy and Mohd Noor ISA, Malaysia: The Development of National Atlas – Malaysia’s Experience. This article is a peer reviewed paper presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Vietnam.This paper has provided explanations on the components of Malaysia’s national atlas, the methodology, issues and recommendations, as well as future works.

July/August 2019 is written by Kealy et al.: A Benchmarking Measurement Campaign in GNSS-denied/Challenged Indoor/Outdoor and Transitional Environments. This article is a peer reviewed paper, presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The paper received the navXperience award given to the best peer review paper within the area of positioning and measurement (FIG Commission 5).

May/June 2019 is written by Dang Hung Vo and Pham Van Cu (Vietnam): Timing - Spatial Information System Is The Information Infrastructure to Develop the Smart World. This article was the first plenary presentation at the FIG Working Week 2019´and points out the opportunities and challenges in the transition from "electronic" period to "smart" period. Finding the right road map of development will help countries to shorten the time and distance to the destination of a "smart country".

March/April 2019 is written by Clarissa Augustinus, FIG Honorary Ambassador: Working with FIG for 25 years on socio-economic innovations. This article is based on a speech presented at the FIG 140 Year Anniversary and Handover Event in November 2018. Clarissa Augustinus has been working together with FIG since 1993 as an academic, public figure and a partner in her capacity as leader of the UN-Habitat/Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and this speech is a special insight and personal journey through her work in the field of land administration and surveying together with FIG. This presentation will hopefully also give some ideas on how to bring about change through collaboration at national and global levels.

February 2019 is written by Peter Wyatt, United Kingdom: From a Property Tax to a Land Tax – Who Wins, Who Loses? This paper has passed the FIG peer review and will be presented at the FIG Working Week 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The paper looks at some of the consequences of switching from recurrent real estate taxes that are based on improved values to one that is based on the value of unimproved land.

January 2019 is written by Kevin Mcdougall and Saman Koswatte, Australia :  The Future of Authoritative Geospatial Data in the Big Data World – Trends, Opportunities and Challenges .This paper was presented at the Commission 3 meeting in Naples, Italy and was chosen by commission 3 as paper of the month. The paper will examine the drivers of the “Big Data” phenomena and look to identify how authoritative and big data may co-exist.

2018

December 2018 is written by David Goodwin and James Berghan, New Zealand:  A planning model to incorporate socially-based tenure principles into mainstream planning. This paper was presented at the FIG Congress in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2018. The paper focuses on socially-based tenure. The best-planned housing developments, may nonetheless fail as viable communities. A possible contributing factor is the manner in which individualised tenure systems tend to divorce land rights from social responsibilities. Recognising this, some Māori planning initiatives in New Zealand have sought to re-introduce key communal or socially-based tenure principles to the planning equation.

November 2018 is written by Guanqing LI and Shengxiang HUANG, China: Control Survey for a 6.7 km Immersed Tunnel in Chinese Lingding Ocean. This paper was presented at the FIG Congress in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2018. The paper focuses on the 6.7 km Immersed Tunnel that links Hong Kong to the east, and Zhuhai and Macao to the west. For the construction of  such a long immersed tunnel, particular care should be taken in the perspective of geodetic control.The paper describes the design and implemention of the geodetic basis and hierarchical surface control networks.

October 2018i s written by Stig Enemark, Denmark and Robin McLaren, UK: Making FFP Land Administration Compelling and Work in Practice. This paper was presented at the Commission 7 Annual Meeting in Bergen, Norway, 24-28 September 2018. The paper initially provides background to the 2030 Global Agenda and the realisation that many of these goals will not be achieved without quickly solving the current insecurity of tenure crisis through the FFP approach to land administration. Finally, the paper reviews the lessons learned from implementing FFP land administration solutions in three developing countries, Indonesia, Nepal and Uganda.

September 2018 is written by Morten Hartvigsen, FAO: FAO support to land consolidation in Europe and Central Asia from 2000-2018 - Experiences and way forward. The paper gives an overview of the FAO land consolidation programme from 2000 and onwards including lessons learned and way forward. The objective of this paper is to present the FAO experiences of supporting member countries related to land consolidation.

August 2018 is written by Carlos BRETT, Venezuela and Isaac BOATENG, United Kingdom: Alternative Approach and toolkits for Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services of Wetlands: An Application to Farlington Marshes, UK. This article has passed the FIG peer review and was presented at the FIG Congress 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. Despite the relevance of wetlands there is no generally accepted methodology for the economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services of wetlands.This paper attempts to develop an alternative holistic approach.
 

July 2018 is written by Kwabena Asiama et al. (Netherlands): Land Valuation in Support of Responsible Land Consolidation on Ghana’s Rural Customary. The paper was awarded the Survey Review Prize, and has passed through the reviewing and revision stage overseen by FIG, before being judged by members of the Editorial Board of Survey Review. The paper deals with an important subject and has implications for many other countries in which customary land rights apply.
 

June 2018 is written by Wan Anom WAN ARIS, Tajul Ariffin MUSA, Kamaludin MOHD OMAR and Abdullah Hisam OMAR, Malaysia: Non-Linear Crustal Deformation Modeling for Dynamic Reference Frame: A Case Study in Peninsular Malaysia. The paper was awarded the navXperience AWARD, granted by FIG Commission 5. This Peer Review paper was presented at the FIG Congress 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. The Paper developes innovative methods to model non-linear crustal movements and consider these models for non-static reference frames.

May 2018 is written Abdulvahit Torun, Turkey: Geodata Enabled Hierarchical Blockchain Architecture for Resolving Boundary Conflicts in Cadastre Surveys and Land Registration. The paper provides a view into application facilities of blockchain technology for cadastra and land registration and will be presented during the congress.

April 2018 is written by Lopang MAPHALE and Kealeboga Kaizer MORERI, Botswana: A consideration for a conceptual partnership framework in building spatial data infrastructures in developing countries. The paperhas been peer-reviewed and is going to be presented during the FIG Congres 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey.

March 2018 is written by Brian Coutts, New Zealand: A case for Geospatial Surveyors. This article evaluates whether the term "geomatics" has met the original needs and if its use is still valid or if a better term is available. While widely used in academia, the surveying profession has been more reluctant to adopt the term and controversy and confusion have grown up around its meaning. Brian Coutts is Chair of FIG Commission 1, Professional Standards and Practice.

February 2018 is written by Bakogiannis Efthimios, Charalampos Kyriakidis, Maria Siti, Nikolaos Kougioumtzidis and Chryssy Potsiou, Greece: The use of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in noise mapping. This paper was presented at the conference in Bucharest, Romania.The aim of this paper is to present an overview of a research about the monitoring of the urban acoustic environment affordably and reliably, and investigating the potential use of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) for such applications in typical medium-sized cities.

January 2018 is written by Daniel Páez, Abbas Rajabifard & Joaquín Andrés Franco Gantiva, Colombia: Methodological proposal for measuring and predicting Urban Green Space per capita in a Land-Use Cover Change model: Case Study in Bogota. This paper was presented at the Commission 7 Annual Meeting in Bogota Colombia. It describes the problem of lack of sustainable urban planning and territorial ordinance plans which have led to nullification, fragmentation and reduction of green space and strategic ecosystems within cities.

2017

December 2017 is written by José António TENEDÓRIO and Luís MARQUES, Portugal: How can 3D models and augmented reality visualization based on mobile platforms enhance the value of urban heritage? This paper was chosen among numerous papers that constituted the program of the FIG Commission 3 workshop in November 2017 in Lisbon. The main idea of the Paper is about Digital Representations in the relation between Technology, Agents and Several Knowledge Domains, and is aimed at analyzing the Augmented Valuation of Cultural Heritage based on Geographic Information Technologies (GIT).

November 2017 is written by VJinyue WANG, Martin METZNER and Volker SCHWIEGER, Germany: Accuracy and Quality Assessment of Various Digital Road Maps for Wrong-Way Driving Detection on German Autobahn. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. Ghost driver incidents become a major concern for every individual road user. In order to enhance road safety, particularly by entering and exiting an autobahn, a telematics system for preventing ghost driver incidents will be implemented within the research project Ghosthunter. This study aims to investigate the use potential of digital road maps for preparation and development of an intelligent wrong-way driving detection system.

October 2017 is written by Vassilis GIKAS, Harris PERAKIS, Allison KEALY, Guenther RETSCHER, Thanassis MPIMIS, Constantinos ANTONIOU, Greece, Australia, Austria, Germany: Indoor Parking Facilities Management Based on RFID CoO Positioning in Combination with Wi–Fi and UWB This paper is a peer review paper that was presented at the FIG Working Week 2017. Fixed geometric constraints, imposed by man-made structures, weather influences, etc., make it possible to restrict positioning. In this study, these problems will be subjected to a number of tests and a low-cost solution will be offered.

September 2017 is written by Wallace MUKUPA, China,  Gethin Wyn ROBERTS, United Kingdom, Craig Matthew HANCOCK, China, Khalil AL-MANASIR, China: Correction of Terrestrial LiDAR Data Using a Hybrid Model This paper is a peer review paper that was presented at the FIG Working Week 2017. Wallace Mukupa received a ph.d. grant from FIG Foundation in 2016 and one of the results is this peer review paper. In this paper, a hybrid method for correcting intensity data is presented. 

August 2017 is written by Hannu Koivula, Antti Laaksonen, Sonja Lahtinen, Jaakko Kuokkanen, Simo Marila, Finland: Finnish Permanent GNSS Network, FinnRef 
For the first time FIG Commission 5 decided to award the best Commission 5 paper of the FIG Working Week with the NavXperience Award. The price 2017 was awarded to Hannu Koivula et al. for their contribution.  The paper is focusing on renewing the FinnRef network. The NRTK service will be improved so that it fulfills the internal surveying needs of the NLS. For this purpose the NLS has initiated a project for 2017-2019 to densify FinnRef with 20-30 new GNSS stations.

July 2017 is written by Olli NEVALAINEN, Tomi ROSNELL, Teemu HAKALA, Eija HONKAVAARA, Roope NÄSI, Kimmo NURMINEN, Finland: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Municipality Level 3D Topographic Data Production in Urban Areas.
This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. Te paper describes general properties and characteristics of different types of UAVs. Results showed that UAV photogrammetry provides low cost tool for producing topographic data in urban areas, especially when small areas are of concern.

June 2017 is written by Fernando SOARES, Maria João HENRIQUES and César ROCHA, Portugal:
Concrete Block Tracking in Breakwater Models
This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. This paper focuses on breakwater(BW) and evaluate the effectiveness of the shape and of the protective elements to save the harbour. This study proposes a methodology to estimate displacements of concrete blocks of the outer layer, also called protection layer, of rouble-mound breakwater models.

May 2017 is written by Maarit KAHILA and Anna BROBERG, Finland: Making cities wiser - Crowdsourcing for better decisions
This paper will be presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. The paper presents different innovative case studies from Finland and abroad where Maptionnaire (a leading solution for collecting, analyzing and discussing resident insight on a map) has been used. Based on the findings a new public participation model has been drafted.

April 2017 is written by John BROCK, Australia: HADRIAN’S WALL: Boundary Monument for the Northern Frontier of Roman Britannia! 
This paper will be presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. Much hypotheses and over-thinking has taken place over hundreds of years in an effort to attribute purposes for the raison d’etre of the wall across northern Britain erected at the behest of the formidable Roman Emperor whose name has been ultimately used to describe this intriguing edifice. John Brock makes his own offering to the discussion table about what served as the main reasons for the erection of such a notable memorial to the time of the renowned civilization during the second century.

March 2017 is written by Arvo KOKKONEN, Jani KYLMÄAHO and Heli URSIN, Finland: Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (Arctic SDI)
This paper will be presented at the FIG Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland, 29 May – 2 June. Understanding and responding to the impacts of climate change and human activities in the Arctic, requires accessible and reliable data to facilitate monitoring, management, emergency preparedness and decision making. The Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (Arctic SDI), was established to address the need for readily available spatial data in the northern areas of the globe. The paper focuses on the collaboration.

February 2017 is written by Zaid ABUBAKARI, Netherlands, Paul VAN DER MOLEN, Netherlands, Rohan M. BENNETT, Netherlands, Elias DANYI KUUSAANA, Ghana: Land consolidation, customary lands, and Ghana’s Northern Savannah Ecological Zone: An evaluation of the possibilities and pitfalls . This paper was presented at the International Symposium on Land Consolidation and Land Readjustment – held in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, 9 – 11 November 2016. The paper demonstrates that Land Consolidation - as an existing and proven approach - can be used very well for future challenges - as mitigation of and adaptation to climate change effects.

January 2017 is written by František PAVLÍK, Arnošt MÜLLER, Svatava MARADOVÁ and Michal GEBHART, Czech Republic: Adaptation Measures for Climate Change in the Process of Land Consolidation. This paper was presented at the International Symposium on Land Consolidation and Land Readjustment – held in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, 9 – 11 November 2016. This paper was chosen as being most representative for modern land consolidation in the context of sustainable development. It focuses on how climate changes cause higher demand on the land consolidation process and introduce new challenges especially in the design of adaptation measures through the Common Facilities Plan as an important part of land consolidation process in Czech Republic.

2016

December 2016 is written by Cromwell MANALOTO, Daniele BRANCATO, Alessandro DALMASSO, Luca DAL BUONO, Angelo CRESCENZI, Italy : Project BDI: the Socioeconomic Impact of Comparable Property Analysis through GIS.
The paper was presented at the FIG Commission 3 Workshop and Annual Meeting in Iasi, Romania and was selected among the papers at the workshop to be FIG Article of the Month. The article focuses on the BDI – Real Estate Comparable Database Project, created to provide a strategic tool to all entities operating in the real estate sector.

November 2016 is written by  Katerina Athanasiou, Efi Dimopoulou, Christos Kastrisios and Lysandros Tsoulos, Greece: Management of Marine Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities according to International Standards. The paper was presented and awarded "Best Paper" at the 5th International FIG Workshop on 3D Cadastres. The aim of this paper is to probe the ways the legislation can be included into a Marine Administration System (MAS) and to present how Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities (RRRs) relating to marine space may be defined and organized.

October 2016 is written by Hartmut Müller, Germany: Briding the Gap between Surveyors and the Geo-Spatial Society. The paper was presented in a joint FIG/ISPRS session at the ISPRS Congress July 2016 in Prague. The author discusses the role of surveyors today in a complex and technologic advanced world and the requirements of the surveyor of tomorrow.

September 2016 is written by Suelynn Choy, Australia, Sunil Bisnath, Canada, Chris Rizos, Australia: Uncovering Common Misconceptions in GNSS Precise Point Positioning and its Future Prospect. The paper covers the work of FIG Working Group 5.4 – GNSS;  GNSS Precise Point Positioning (PPP) and gives an overview of misconceptions, challenges and opportunities. The paper has been published in GPS Solutions - The Journal of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ISSN: 1080-5370 (Print) 1521-1886 (Online)).

August 2016 is written by Ralf Becker, Stefan Herle, Rainer Lehfeldt, Peter Fröhle, Jürgen Jensen, Till Quadglieg, Holger Schüttrumpfand Jörg Blankenbach, Germany: Distributed and Sensor Based Spatial Data Infrastructure for Dike Monitoring  This peer reviewed paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Christchurch, New Zealand from 2-6 May 2016. The article introduces a holistic analysis for early warning,  which includes all relevant processes and cascading effects, allows just in time warnings and provides reliable and robust real-time data.

July 2016 is written by Leslie Downie and Jenny Whittal, South Africa:   Social Tenure Based on Intimacy – Avoiding Family Disasters:  South African Marital Contracts as an Innovative Pro-Poor Land Tool   One innovative land tool within The Social Tenure Domain Mode that can function in a pro-poor way and that has not previously been explored is the use of marital and cohabitation agreements to secure tenure.
The article has been basis for a book published 2017: Pro-Poor Legal Practice

June 2016 - Mau Duc NGO, Vietnam; David MITCHELL, Australia; Donald GRANT, Australia; and Nicholas CHRISMAN, USA Accessibility to Land Administration by Grassroots Stakeholders in Vietnam: Case study of Vinh Long Province. This peer reviewed paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2016 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The article presents the evaluation of grassroots stakeholders’ accessibility to the land administration, and to the development of a modern land administration system in Vietnam.

May 2016 - Walter Timo De Vries (Germnay):  Post Disaster Consolidation of Land, Memory and Identity. This peer reviewed paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2-6 May 2016. This paper takes a closer look at the post-disaster re-development plan for urban areas, with a particular focus on reconsolidating historical social memory and preservation of identity. This is done using two well-documented cases of urban disasters: the firework disaster in Enschede/Netherlands in 2000 and the Merapi disaster in Yogyakarta / Indonesia 2010.

April 2016 - Murat Meha (Kosovo) Joep Crompvoets (Belgium) Muzafer Çaka and Denis Pitarka (Kosovo):   Implementing a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for a Modern Kosovo. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. The paper describes how to work on the strategy and implementation for a National Spatial Data Infrastructure in a modern society. Kosovo is used as example. The strategy that is developed is based on INSPIRE, and a road map for the implementation is also included.

March 2016 - Paul Denys and Chris Pearson (New Zealand): Positioning in Active Deformation Zones - Implications for NetworkRTK and GNSS Processing Engines. This peer reviewed paper will be presented at the FIG Workign Week in Christchurch, New Zealand. The paper considers examples in New Zealand of non-linear deformation that includes post-seismic relaxation and slow slip events.

February 2016 - Him Lal Shrestha, Nawaraj Chapagain, Krishna Ram Dhital, Sujan Adhikari (Nepal): Geospatial analysis of forest resources availability for the reconstruction after Earthquake 2015. This paper was presented at the FIG – ISPRS workshop International Workshop on Role of Land Professionals and SDI in Disaster Risk Reduction: In the Context of Post 2015 Nepal Earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25-27 November, 2015. In April 2015 a earthquake stroke Nepal. The rebuild of the country has increased the demand of forest resources. Throough a geospatial approach this study links the devastation, demand generated on forest resources and the resource availability in Gorkha district.

January 2016 - Reshma Shrestha, Arbind Tuladhar, Jaap Zevenbergen (the Netherlands): Exploring land governance in post-disaster: a case of informal settlement. This paper was presented at the FIG – ISPRS workshop International Workshop on Role of Land Professionals and SDI in Disaster Risk Reduction: In the Context of Post 2015 Nepal Earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25-27 November, 2015. The focus of this paper is on analyzing the land governance in informal settlements during reconstruction phase of post-disaster periods.

2015

December 2015 - Jody Sultan, Gev Ben-Haim, Jan-Henrik Haunert and Sagi Dalyot: Using Crowdsourced Volunteered Geographic Information for Analyzing Bicycle Road Networks. This paper was presented at the joint FIG Commission 3 & 7 Meeting "Crowdsourcing of Land Information" in Malta, 16-20 November 2015. The paper focuses on road infrastructure and road use; more specific on the interactions between traffic participants and to help cyclists navigate safely in the urban environment. The paper aims at exploiting available VGI data sources in the form of crowdsourced base maps (OpenStreetMap) and GPS trajectories collected by cyclists (GPSies).

November 2015 - Suelynn Choy, Erjiang Frank Fu, John Dawson, Minghai Jjia and Yuriy Kuleshov (Australia), Fabrice Chane-Ming (France), Chuan-Sheng Wang and Ta-Kang Yeh (Taiwan): Application of GPS Atmospheric Sounding for Climate Studies in the Australian Region  This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. The paper presents results of analysis of atmospheric characteristics (temperature and moisture) in the Australian region using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ground-based meteorology and space-based radio occultation (RO) techniques verified with in-situ radiosonde measurement.

October 2015 - Juhana Hiironen, Kirsikka Riekkinen and Hanna Tuominen, Finland: The Impact of a New Subway Line on Property Values in Helsinki Metropolitan Area. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. This paper illiminates whether a new subway line will have an impact on residential apartment values and on public revenues.

September 2015 - Haim Srebro, Israel: Implementation of Marine Cadastre in Israel.This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. Implementation of marine cadastre in Israel started in 2011. This paper elaborates on the implementation and plans regarding a marine cadastre that will achieve a cadastral coverage over the sovereign area of Israel, including a description of its implementation in the approved marine settlement blocks as a result of cooperation between Survey of Israel (SOI) and the Department of Registration and Land Settlement (The Land Registry) under the Ministry of Justice.

August 2015 - Chris Williams-Wynn, South Africa: What People Want. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. Land administration in South Africa is an interesting study because it consists of a dual system that has promoted investment in areas where private property rights were permitted, but relegated the Traditional Communities into poverty and disinvestment. The paper shows that the concept of ownership, land rights and title deeds goes much further than the ability to buy and sell property.

July 2015 - Daniel Steudler, Switzerland: Dimension Cadastre – Stepping Beyond Limits. The paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015 and questions what will happen to the traditional surveyor. Many factors have an impact on the way how geographic information systems, including cadastres, are perceived.

June 2015 - Zlatan ZLATANOV and Georgi ZLATANOV, Bulgaria: Use of Photogrammetric Methods at the Creation of a Cadastre Map. Three-Dimensional Model of the Cadastre Map. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-21 May 2015. The paper elaborates on the use of of photogrammetric methods in the creation of a cadastre map. The paper is based on a field study from Bulgaria.

May 2015 - Silvia Marinova, Temenoujka Bandrova, Mihaela Kouteva-Guentcheva, Stefan Bonchev, Bulgaria: Thematic Mapping for Disaster Risk Assessment in Case of Earthquake. In this paper was presented at the FIG Working Week, 17-21 May 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The paper presents a conceptual model for information system for expert express evaluation of the earthquake risk over the Bulgarian territory using GIS. Several damaging earthquakes have shaken the Bulgarian territory since 1818. To reduce the damages it is necessary to have at disposal preliminary estimates of frequency and magnitude of the earthquakes, particular engineering characteristics of the seismic action and relevant opportunities for disaster management.

April 2015 - Potsiou, FIG President, Greece: Ensuring the Rapid Response to Change,
Ensuring the Surveyor of Tomorrow. In this paper FIG President Chryssy Potsiou unveils her ideas for the FIG action plan, which includes a close cooperation among FIG in order to better prepare tomorrow’s surveyors today to enable them performing in a sustainable way and within the framework of the FIG vision. She also presents a summary of literature research and brainstorming input accumulated mainly from the FIG kick-off seminar and the FIG side event during the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty.

March 2015 - Poerbandono, Indonesia: Seafloor Swathe Survey for Search and Rescue Mission of Air Asia QZ8501 On the 28 December, 2014, a commercial airplane, Air Asia QZ8501 flying from Surabaya (Indonesia) to Singapore, was reported missing and believed to crash into the sea. This paper focuses upon the search for the flight. Three survey zones were covered: Area-1 (the position of last contact from the airplane), Area-2 (where debris and bodies from the crashed airplane were recovered), and Area-3 (the last RADAR sighting). Area-2 is about 15 km SE of Area-1 and Area-3 is about 89 km NW of Area-2. The survey is executed as seabed search by using Side Scan Sonar imagery and Multi Beam Echo Sounder point cloud data.

February 2015 - Please join us in this very different and unusual article of the month - a Manga story, which we hope that you will enjoy as much as we do.This is the amazing and true story of a Japanese survey markeruprooted by  Typhoon Talas in September 2011 and travelling for 6 months 8000 km (5000 miles) across the Pacific Ocean. The manufacturer of the survey marker, Ripro Corporation, has turned this incredible story into a traditional Japanese Manga graphic comic book. Enjoy! LITTLE ORCA’S 5000 MILE ODYSSEY

January 2015 - Anne B. O. Jensen and Anders Almholt, Denmark: Geodetic Infrastructure and Positioning for the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link. This paper describes the solutions and implementations chosen in establishing a geodetic basis, or geodetic infrastructure, for the construction work of the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link; a tunnel which is being constructed between Germany and Denmark across the Fehmarnbelt.

2014

December 2014 - Talia Dror, Sagi Dalyot, Yerach Doytsher, Israel: A Quantitative Geo-Evaluation of Crowdsourcing and Wisdom of the Crowd. This paper was presented at the commission 3 meeting, 4-7 November 2014 in Bologna, Italy. The paper aims at distinguishing between the Crowdsourcing and Wisdom of the Crowd, via the quantitative and theoretical examination of two widely used location based services: OpenStreetMap (OSM), and Waze.

November 2014 - Tajul Ariffin Musa, Abdullah Hisam Omar, Ivin Amri Musliman, Siti Syukriah Khamdan, Yip Kit Mengand Kamaludin Omar, Malaysia: A Prototype of RFID-Based Cadastral Boundary Mark System (RCBMS) in Malaysia. This paper is peer reviewed and presented at the 2014 FIG Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The paper discuss an RFID-based cadastral boundary mark system (RCMBS). The aim of the RCBMS is to modernize the conventional cadastral boundary marks with marks that are lighter, robust, and easy to locate, and which offer the capability to perform spatial/non-spatial cadastral information on site.

October 2014 - Don Grant, Mark Dyer, Anselm Haanen, New Zealand: A New Zealand Strategy for Cadastre 2034. At the XX FIG Congress 1994 in Melbourne, commission 7 initiated a working group looking at trends and developments in the field of cadastre. It projected the trends and developed visions of what cadastral systems might be in 20 years' time – thus today! Today we look at the visionary date of 2034 which has been proposed for an update of the FIG Cadastre 2014 strategy. This paper was presented at the XXV FIG Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and focuses on the cadastral strategy for New Zealand and proposes a number of significant changes to the cadastre. More information about Cadastre 2014, click here.
 

September 2014 - Daniel Roman and Xiaopeng Li (United States): GRAV-D: Using Aerogravity to Produce a Refined Vertical Datum. This paper focuses upon the aerogravity science necessary to support the production of a cm-level accurate geoid height model. The background is the Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum (GRAV-D) Project in 2008 with a goal of developing a new vertical datum realized through a regional (continental scale) geoid height model. The paper was presented at the 2014 FIG Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

August 2014 - Gary Strong and David Pilling (United Kingdon): Why Technical Standards are not enough for Professionals Working in Land, Property and Construction and the Importance of International Standards on Ethics. This article was presented at the FIG Congress 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The paper explores the opportunities and very real benefits that could be afforded not only to professionals working in land, property and construction but also to clients, the public and society more generally by the setting, promotion and monitoring of international standards on ethics.

July 2014 - Ken Harima et al. (Australia): Performance of Real-Time Precise Point Positioning Using MADOCA-LEX Augmentation Messages. This article is a peer reviewed article presented at the FIG Congress 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The topic covers the Asian-Pacific area but is relevant and important internationally as well. The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is a satellite-based augmentation system for the GPS, GLONASS and Galileo constellations, transmitting navigation signals that are compatible and interoperable with the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The enhanced capacity allows augmentation messages aimed at centimeter-level Precise Point Positioning (PPP) to be broadcasted over the QZSS wide area of coverage.

June 2014 - John Brock, Australia: The Great Wall of China: The World’s Greatest Boundary Monument! This paper investigates which portions of The Great Wall(s) of China were mainly erected as boundary demarcations and the others put up as protection as well as attempting to highlight early techniques and equipment used by the Chinese surveyors of antiquity hopefully supplemented by some translated texts and historic art. The paper will be presented Friday 20 June 2014 at the History Symposium held in conjunction with the 2014 FIG Congress in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The History Symposium is organized by the International Institution for the History of Surveying and Measurement, a Permanent Institution within FIG, http://www.fig.net/fig2014/history.htm.

May 2014 - Chee Hua Teng, Mohd Yunus Mohd Yusoff and Nur Zurairah Abdul Halim, Malaysia: The Development of 3D City Model for Putrajaya MPC Database.This paper is a Malaysian Peer Review paper, which will be presented at FIG Congress 2014 16-21 June, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The leading agency in Malaysia on Cadastral Survey, the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM) has experienced a need to move from a single purpose cadastre to a multipurpose cadastre (MPC) environment. A pilot study was conducted at the Federal Territory (FT) Putrajaya. This paper highlights the main component of the pilot study which is the FT Putrajaya MPC database development and basics of 3D city model generated from the 3D point-cloud data acquired through Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) technology. A general requirement for setting up an MPC database for Malaysia has been established in this study and it was concluded that the FT Putrajaya MPC Database and its 3D city model have the potential as a spatial enablement to the government, private sectors, and society in general based on the spatial accuracy achieved in this study.

April 2014 - Meng Chan Lim and Halim Setan, Malaysia: A Practical Deformation Monitoring Procedure and Software System for CORS Coordinate Monitoring. This paper illustrates the combination of continuous GPS measurement with robust method for deformation detection to GPS station position change. A window-based software system for GPS deformation detection and analysis via robust method, called Continuous Deformation Analysis System (ConDAS), has been developed at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. This paper describes the design and architecture of ConDAS and highlights the deformation analysis results from two assessments. The paper is a Malaysian Peer Review paper, which will be presented at FIG Congress 2014 16-21 June, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

March 2014 - Alexander Kohli, Switzerland: Adjusting Laws to meet the Requirements of Urban
Expansion in a Sus-tainable Property System. The paper of the month presents a concept for Sustainable Land Management to secure a long term successful development of informal urbanization. To create good conditions for improving the property and planning situation, a solid legal base has to be put in place before further land management activities are undertaken. The author asks for the initialization of an intermediate legal frame-work as an initial step to be applied to a special perimeter of action, the so-called 'temporary development zones' TDZ. This paper was presented at the Annual World bank Conference on Land and Poverty, in Washington DC, April 8-1, 2013. You can hear Dr. Alexander Kohlis presentation at the XXV International FIG Congress 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

February 2014 - Kien Hwa TING, Malaysia: Retail Market Studies for the Capital Market: Form versus Substance. This paper is a Malaysian Peer Review paper, which will be presented at FIG Congress 2014 16-21 June, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We are pleased to share this Peer Review paper with you already now prior the congress to highlight one of the topics - real estate - covered at the congress. On the 19 and 20 June the Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia has been invited to participate in the Congress.  and together with FIG Commission 9 and 10 special sessions on valuation and  estate management are being prepared i.e. the launch of the International Property Measurement Standards (IPMS). Mr. See Lian ONG, Chair Elect of FIG Commission 10, is furthermore facilitating a high-level session on Building Information Management, BIM.

January - 2014 - Volker Schwieger, Germany and Mikael Lilje, Sweden: Innovative and Cost Effective Spatial Positioning. This paper was presented at FIG Working week, 6-10 May 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria.This paper focuses on surveying of land and the base infrastructure needed for surveying task. It shows how geodetic marks may be replaced by new infrastructures like active control networks. Apart from the technical basics, it outlines the economic benefits with respect to costs and surveying instruments available to local surveyors.

2013

December - 2013 - John Hannah, New Zealand: Climate Change and Responsible Governance: The Role of Surveyors in Assisting Small Island Developing States. This paper was presented in a plenary session at the Pacific Region Small Island Developing States Symposium, 18-20 September 2013 in Suva, Fiji. The paper discuss how surveyors can contribution to the issues of climate change and responsible governance, particularly as they affect Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The paper reflects some of the work the FIG Task Force on Climate Change has been undertaking since it was established in 2010. John Hannah is chair and at the FIG Congress 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia the task force will deliver a final report.

November - 2013 - Giselle Byrnes, New Zealand: Boundary Makers: Land Surveying in nineteenth-century New Zealand. This paper is a historical outline of the early land surveyors importance to the history of New Zealand, as they were among the advance guard of European settlers to walk the land and assess its potential for future development. Surveyors around the world are struggling with many current challenges. However, this article gives you a possibility to reflect about the impact of surveyors through history in the development and mapping of societies. The paper is a historical outline of the early land surveyors importance to the history of New Zealand, as they were among the advance guard of European settlers to walk the land and assess its potential for future development. We are pleased to share this paper with you since FIG Institution for the History of Surveying and Measurement organises a very special trip, conference and event on Charting and Mapping the Pacific Paradise of the Pitcairners at Norfolk Island, (an island half way between Australia and New Zealand), 6-10 July 2014: Invitation and program.

October - 2013 - Pasi Häkli, Ulla Kallio Jyrki Puupponen, Finland: From Passive to Active Control Point Networks – Evaluation of Accuracy in Static GPS Surveying. This peer reviewed paper was presented at FIG Working Week in Abuja, Nigeria, 8 May 2013 and evaluates the accuracy of static GPS surveying through active stations with regard to the official passive control point networks in EUREF-FIN.

September - 2013 - Frank F. K. Byamugisha, World Bank: Improving Land Governance for Development: Opportunities and Challenges for the Survey Profession. This paper is an annotated version of a keynote addressed by Frank Byamugisha from the World Bank at the FIG Working Week, 6-10 May 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria. The central message of the paper is that surveyors and other land professionals have an important role to play in improving land governance in Africa, which is critical to unlocking the continent’s potential of abundant land to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For further information about land administration and reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa, Frank Byamigisha has just published the book Securing Africa's Land for Shared Prosperity. Download the book here.

August - 2013 - Gary Strong, Alexander Aronsohn and Ben Elder, United Kingdom: Innovative Approaches to Spatially Enabling Land Administration and Management. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week, 6-10 May 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria. This paper explores how, with only a small amount of investment, the development and implementation of internationally agreed and recognised measurement standards will support an improved market efficiency and providing a wide range of beneficial tools to decision makers.

July - 2013 - Solomon Haile, Ombretta Tempra and Remy Sietchping, UN-habitat, Kenya: Towards a capacity development Framework for Land Plocy in Africa. The article discusses the Land Policy Initiative (LPI) and how relevant activities are planned and implemented to think through and develop strategies and road maps that will culminate into the development of a coherent, unified and cutting edge Capacity Development Framework (CDF). LPI Capacity Development was a sub theme at the Working Week 2013. The LPI was discussed at the GLTN/Director General forum which were spread over 4 sessions during the Working Week and furthermore there was a special session on Africa LPI Capacity Development where Solomon Haile presented the proposed Africa LPI Capacity Development initiative.

June - 2013 - Paul Munro-Faure and Andrew Hilton, FAO, Italy: Building on the consensus: FAO’s first twelve months after endorsement of the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure. In May 2012 the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, which represent an unprecedented international agreement on the governance of tenure, and place secure access to land, fisheries and forests firmly in the context of food security, was officially endorsed. This paper describes the first twelve months of the FAO work, with its partners, in developing and implementing a programme for making improved governance of tenure a reality. FIG is co-organising a Pacific Small Island Developing States Symposium at Fiji, 18-20 September 2013 addressing the specific challenges for the Pacific area as a follow up on the SIDS (Small Island Developing States and the Millennium Development Goals) Agenda for Action, started at the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney.

May 2013 - Ismail Ojetunde, Nigeria: Revisiting the Interaction between the Nigerian Residential Property Market and the Macroeconomy. This paper is a Nigerian Peer Review paper, which was presented at FIG Working Week 2013, 6-10 May, in Abuja, Nigeria. Like last month article, this paper also highlight one of the challenges Nigerian surveyors are dealing with, namely the Nigerian property market. At the conference many papers highlighted the current challenges Nigerians surveyors are faced with, but also international challenges. You can find the papers here.

April 2013 - Iyenemi Ibimina Kakulu, Simeon Igbara, Isaac Akuru and Nekabari Paul Visigah, Nigeria: Land Access and Community Entry Challenges in Environmental Surveys Selected cases from Nigeria. This paper is a Nigerian Peer Review paper, which will be presented at FIG Working Week 2013 -6-10 May, in Abuja, Nigeria. We are pleased to share this Peer Review paper with you already now prior the conference to highlight one of the challenges that Nigerian surveyors are dealing with, namely land access restrictions. Together with UNEP, the authors have undertaken a comprehensive environmental survey of several communities in the Niger Delta region, and their findings and methods are interesting not only in Nigeria but can be used in countries all over the world. At the conference you will be presented to many further papers both from Nigeria, Africa, and Internationally, that highlight the current challenges for surveyors.

March 2013 -  Peter Van Oosterom, Christiaan Lemmen and Harry Ultermark, The Netherlands: Land Administration Standardization with focus on Evidence from the Field and Processing of Field Observations. The 'Land Administration Domain Model (LADM)' was approved as an official International ISO Standard a on 1 November 2012, a milestone for FIG. The proposal for this standard was submitted by FIG to ISO almost five years ago. LADM defines terminology for land administration, based on various national and international systems that is as simple as possible in order to be useful in practice. LADM covers the compete domain, surveying included.It is highly relevant that documented field surveys can be included, in combination with reconstructable adjustments to the spatial database.

February 2013 -  Michael Barry, Richard Molero and Abdel-Rahman Muhsen, Canada: Evolutionary Land Tenure Information System Development: The Talking Titler Methodology. This article was presented at the 8th FIG Regional Conference, 26-29 November 2012 in Montevideo Uruguay. The authors argue that conventional land registration systems often do not produce the desired results in uncertain land tenure situations such as peri-urban areas in developing world cities, post-conflict situations, land restitution cases and aboriginal lands. They introduce a methodology “The Talking Titler” system. The methodology was conceived in South Africa, and has recently been tested in Canada and Nigeria.

January 2013 - Msc. Ing. Raquel SOSA, Msc. Ing. Agrim. Rosario CASANOVA, Facultad de Ingeniería and Ing. Agrim. Jorge FRANCO, Dirección Nacional de Topografía, Uruguay: gvSIG Batoví an Educational GIS.The paper summarises a keynote presentation given at the 8th FIG Regional Conference, Montevideo, Uruguay, 27 November 2012 and describes a comprehensive and impressive Uruguayan project called "Plan Ceibal". All school children have received a free lap top, and a software to manage geographic information has been developed, implemented and used at all Uruguayan schools. At the same time the project shows a remarkable cooperation between different Uruguayan organisations.

2012

December 2012 - Volker Böder, Thomas P. Kersten, Thomas Thies and  Arne Sauer, Germany: Mobile laser scanning on board hydrographic survey vessels - applications and accuracy investigation. The first author of the paper, Volker Böder, died 31 August 2012 in a tragic ship accident on duty and we would like to remember him on the remarkable research he has done over the years with the publishing of this article. Volker Boeder was Vice-Chair of Commission 4, Chair of Working Group 4.3 “Multi-Sensor Systems for Hydrographic Applications”, and was a very active member of Commission 4. Among other things he worked on a publication related to the development of technical guidelines for sensor integration (best practises). Volker Böder shall be very much missed both as a colleague and a friend.

November 2012 - Atsushi Yamagiwa, Yohei Hiyama, Toshihiro Yahagi, Hiroshi Yarai, Tetsuro Imakiire and Yuki Kuroishi, Japan: Revision of the Results of Control Points After the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake. In this paper our Japanese colleagues show in a very impressive way how the huge and dense GEONET – GPS network of Japan was used after the Tohoku earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011. The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) stopped providing ‘Survey Results’, but was able to restart this service in a effective and accurate way just some months later after a very active and fundamental phase of re-measurement and recalculation.

October 2012 - C.J. (Kees) de ZEEUW, The Netherlands: Land administration for people, profit and planet. This paper was presented at FIG Working Week in Rome, 8 May 2012 and describes twelve trends relevant for land administration systems. These trends are related to actual and future user demand in society. Trends, developments and proposed concepts are explained and examples are given of land administration products, services and business approaches recently developed at Kadaster in the Netherlands.

September 2012 - Karl-Friedrich Thoene, Germany: Meeting the Environmental Issues - A Challenge for Surveyors and Surveying Associations. The paper summarises a keynote presentation given at the FIG Working Week in Rome, 8 May 2012.

August 2012 - Paul van der Molen, the Netherlands: After 10 Years of Criticism: What is Left of de Soto’s Ideas? This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2012 in Rome, Italy. In 2000 Hernando de Soto published his book The Mystery of Capital. Professor Paul van der Molen aims at collecting the critical remarks published since 2000 and at analyzing whether the ideas of de Soto still stand today. He concludes: ‘De Soto’: yes, but governments which demonstrate political will and which adopt the principles of good governance, are a prerequisite. When this is not the case, formalization - in whatever form - is without meaning and likely will harm the poor.

July 2012 - Diego Alfonso ERBA and Mario Andrés PIUMETTO, Argentina: 3D Cadastre in the Federal Countries of Latin America. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2012 in Rome Italy, and the main question asked is: Is it realistic to develop spatial concepts for parcels and legal land objects and to propose a 3D cadastral model in the federal countries of Latin America at this time? The conclusion indicates that this is the right time to start thinking about it, compiling the legislation and systematizing the 2D definitions as a first step. Latin America occupies approximately 15% of the Earth's land surface and therefore a focus on this continent is appropriate. The next FIG Regional Conference will therefore take place in Uruguay, 26-29 November 2012, with emphasis on the challenges of the region.

June 2012 - Jason Smith, President, Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors, UK: BIM – A Contractors Perspective Building information modelling (BIM) is an approach to designing and documenting building projects and is gaining acceptance in many jurisdictions across the world. It allows all stakeholders and actors within a building project the seamless link between the owner, the designers, the construction professionals, the master builders and the end users. In an era where our profession works towards managing all information spatially, BIM is an enabling a platform that should bring not only sharing and collaboration, but also avoidance of duplication, timeliness and value adding. This paper was presented at FIG Working Week 2012 in Rome Italy.

May 2012 - Jan de Graeve, Belgium: Mercator. The paper is written to celebrate the 500 anniversary of Gerand Mercator by Jan de Graeve, FIG International Institution for the History of Surveying and Measurement and honorary member of FIG. Furthermore it will be presented at the FIG Working Week, History Workshop in Rome, Italy May 2012. The paper is a short introduction to the life and work of Gerand Mercator to highlight the exceptional place he has in the history of the surveying profession.
 

April 2012 - Oren Gal and Yearch Doytsher, Israel: Spatial 3D Analysis of Built-up Areas. This paper has been successfully peer reviewed for the FIG Working Week May 2012 in Rome, Italy. The paper presents a unique solution to the 3D visibility problem in built-up areas and will be presented in the session TS08H - 3D Principles and Technology. Yerach Doytsher is also chair of FIG Commisison 3.

March 2012 - Chryssy Potsiou and Ifigenie Boulaka, Greece : Informal Development in Greece: New Legislation for Formalization, the Chances for Legalization and the Dead Capital. FIG-Vice President Chryssy Potsiou is beside other responsibilities leading the new Task Force (TF) on “Property and Housing” which is very relevant in these turbulent times. The TF will have two special sessions during the Working Week in Rome, May 2012. In this peer-reviewed paper the authors present the results of a recent scientific research on the problem of informal development in Greece and explain the new legislation for formalization of those informal constructions, that are built on legally owned land in the planned and the non-planned areas; the existing informalities refer only to planning and building regulations.
 

February 2012 - Dr. Xavier Comtesse and Dr. Giorgio Pauletto, Switzerland: Vision for the Future - The Impact of New Dimensions. This paper was presented at Commission 7 Meeting in Austria, September 2011. The authors state that in the professions of cadastre both external and internal changes apply considerable pressure. This paper identifies the major trends that will most likely have an impact, apprehend the consequences expected and provide a structure for this development.
 

January 2012 - John F. BROCK, Australia: Four Surveyors of Caesar: Mapping the World! In this article you will hear about the masterpiece of cartography which highlights most of the men responsible for the Survey of the known World, along with aspects of Roman land surveying which underpinned the program of colonisation and settlement within the Roman Empire. The article is an excellent contribution to the FIG Working Week 2012 in Rome, Italy.

2011

December 2011 - Robin McLaren, Scotland, UK: Crowdsourcing Support of Land Administration – A Partnership Approach. In this visionary paper Robin McLaren is exploring one potential solution to the security of tenure gap through establishing a partnership between land professionals and citizens that would encourage and support citizens to directly capture and maintain information about their land rights. It was presented at the annual FIG-Commission 7 meeting last October in Innsbruck (Austria) and is the result of a common research work executed by Robin McLaren and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
 

November 2011 - Damdinsuren Amarsaikhan, Mongolia: Advanced Applications of Optical, Microwave and Hyperspectral RS in Mongolia. In 4 different case studies the capabilities of these techniques and the usage nowadays in Mongolia are demonstrated. This paper was presented at the FIG Commission 5 and 6 workshop in September 2011 in Ulaan-Baatar. The author, Prof. Damdinsuren Amarsaikhan is Head of the Geoinformatics Laboratory at the Institute of Informatics and Remote Sensing, Mongolian Academy of Sciences and Professor at the National University of Mongolia.
 

October 2011 - Alexander Sagaydak and Anna Lukyanchikova, Russian Federation: Development of Agricultural Land Market in the Russian Federation. The development of Agricultural Land Market is unique in Russia compared to other countries. The authors have developed a new method for calculating the value of agricultural land because the banks have not accepted the cadastral value as a basis for agricultural land mortgages. This value was calculated on the basis of the land market auction price model of a certain region. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week in Marrakech May 2011.
 

September 2011 - Graeme Blick, Chris Crook, Nic Donnelly and John Beavan, New Zealand: The Impact of the 2010 Darfield (Canterbury) Earthquake on the Geodetic Infrastructure in New Zealand. The article is reporting on the dramatic impact of the 2010 (Canterbury) Earthquake on the Geodetic Infrastructure in New Zealand. Before the earth quakes happened there was already a fully implemented geodetic Infrastructure in place. On one hand over 1 million geodetic and cadastral marks are affected within 60 km of the earthquakes epicenter where significant ground movements occurred. On the other hand these marks can be used for a detailed and long-term deformation analysis. This article does also underline the need and importance of our profession to the society.
 

August 2011 - Frances Plimmer and William J McCluskey, United Kingdom: Sustainability and Property Taxation. Property Taxation is one of the key topics on the agenda of FIG-Commission 9 for the next years. The authors are discussing sustainability in the context of property taxation. They consider that sustainability in property taxation should be considered from three perspectives – the sustainability of the tax object (land and buildings), the sustainability of the tax system itself and the sustainability of the uses to which the yield from property taxation are put. This paper was successfully peer reviewed and presented at the FIG Working Week in Marrakech May 2011.
 

July 2011 - Kate Fairlie, Mark Whitty, Mitchell Leach, Fadhillah Norzahari, Adrian White, Stephen Cossell, Jose Guivant and Jayantha Katupitiya, Australia: Spatially Smart Wine – Testing Geospatial Technologies for Sustainable Wine Production. Among the authors from our paper of the month July 2010 are 5 part of the Sydney Young Surveyors group. Kate Fairlie is at the same time also Chair of the FIG Young surveyors network. “Spatially Smart Wine” was a project initiated by an enthusiastic group of Sydney Young Surveyors, with the support of the Institute of Surveyors New South Wales and the School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems and the University of New South Wales. In this research geospatial technologies are evaluated for precision viticulture, supporting organic and biodynamic principles. The vineyard application is demonstrated of a teleoperated vehicle with three dimensional laser mapping and GNSS localisation to achieve centimetre-level feature position estimation.
 

June 2011 - Rohan Bennett, Abbas Rajabifard, Mohsen Kalantari, Jude Wallace and Ian Williamson, Australia: Cadastral Futures: Building a New Vision for the Nature and Role of Cadastres.This paper has been selected to the article of the month because of it is the background paper for the special session on Cadastre 2034 at the FIG Working Week in Marrakech in May 2011. This paper was originally presented at the FIG Congress in Sydney in 2010. It was also a starting point for the special issue of GIM International on future cadastres. Handouts of this presentation. You can download the special issue of GIM International from the here. It includes an interview with Hernando De Soto and the series of articles Beyond Cadastre 2034.
 

May 2011 - Peter van Oosterom, Jantien Stoter, Hendrik Ploeger, The Netherlands, Rod Thompson and Sudarshan Karki, Australia: World-wide Inventory of the Status of 3D-Cadastres in 2010 and Expectations for 2014. This paper has been selected to the article of the month because of the increased interest on 3D-cadastre. The paper has been presented at a session on 3D-cadastres at the FIG Working Week in Marrakech in May 2011.
 

April 2011 - Tarja Myllymäki and Tarja Pykälä, Finland: The Challenge to Implement International Cadastral Models - Case Finland. This paper has been presented at the FIG Congress in Sydney, April 2010, and has been revised March 2011. The article is a contribution to develop models for transferring cadastral information at international level. In Europe, INSPIRE theme Cadastral Parcels has introduced a model for cadastral spatial data. Work with a wider perspective is currently taking place as ISO work, where the objective is to provide an international standard for the information used in land administration (Land Administration Domain Model). This article presents the Finnish cadastre and the concepts of basic property unit, parcel and right-of-use unit. The implementation of the INSPIRE Cadastral Parcels model in Finland is analyzed and could work as inspiration for other countries in their work. Handouts of the presentation as pdf (1,7 MB)
 

March 2011 - Bashkim Idrizi, Macedonia (FYROM), Pal Nikolli, Albania, Murat Meha and Ismail Kabashi, Kosovo: Data Quality of Global Map and Some Possibilities/Limitations for Its Wide Utilization for Global Issues. This paper has been presented at the joint Commission 3 and Commission 7 Workshop in November 2010 in Sofia. It has been selected as the article of the month because it gives a good introduction on Global Map, its consistent quality and data standards and its value as a handy tool to monitor the environmental status at regional and global scale. FIG has also selected this paper as recognition of the professional development in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia (FYROM)
 

February 2011 - Philipp Zeimetz and Heiner Kuhlmann, Germany: Validation of the Laboratory Calibration of Geodetic Antennas based on GPS Measurements. This paper is a peer reviewed paper presented at the FIG Congress in Sydney, Australia in April 2010. The topic of the paper is relevant to all who are interested in high precision GNSS surveying and it is presenting a new and innovative method for antenna calibration.
 

January 2011 - Dr. Juha Talvitie, FIG Honorary President, Finland: The Evolution of FIG during the Last 20 Years. The paper is an extended version of the keynote presentation that Dr. Juha Talvitie gave at the FIG Handover Ceremony in Copenhagen, Denmark 27th November 2010. Dr. Talvitie was FIG President 1988-1991 and has been appointed as an FIG Honorary President for his contributions to the Federation. '

December 2010 - Stig Enemark, FIG President 2007-2010: From Cadastre to Land Governance in Support of the Global Agenda - The Role of Land Professionals and FIG. The paper facilitates an understanding of how the cadastral concept has evolved over time into the broader concept of Land Administration Systems in support of sound Land Governance. The role of land professionals and FIG is underlined in this regard. The paper also represents the essence of a range of papers presented by the author as President of FIG over the term of office 2007-2010.
 

November 2010 - Clarissa Augustinus, UN-HABITAT: Social Tenure Domain Model: What It Can Mean for the Land Industry and for the Poor. This article is an invited paper presented at the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney, Australia, 11-16 April 2010. The paper is written by Dr. Clarissa Augustinus from UN-HABITAT, with whom FIG has had an outstanding cooperation for many years. Therefore - in addition of being an excellent presentation on social tenure domain model - this paper also recognises the long-term cooperation between UN-HABITAT and FIG. Clarissa Augustinus is a social scientist who has had large impact in the land surveying world.
Handouts of this presentation as a .pdf-file.
 

October 2010 - David Mitchell, Australia: Reducing Vulnerability to Natural Disasters in the Asia Pacific through Improved Land Administration and Management. This paper is a peer reviewed paper prepared for the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney, Australia, 11-16 April 2010 and draws on the lessons from recent major disasters and existing literature on land issues. Handouts of this presentation as a .pdf file.
 

September 2010 - Anthony ARKO-ADJEI, Ghana and Jitske de JONG, Jaap ZEVENBERGEN and Arbind TULADHAR, The Netherlands: Customary Tenure Institutions and Good Governance. This paper is a peer reviewed paper prepared for the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney, Australia, 11-16 April 2010. At the Congress it was presented by Prof. Jaap Zevenbergen in an invited session about land governance in Africa. It gives good information about customary tenure and good governance in Ghana, and could be of interest to other African countries. Handouts of this presentation as a .pdf file.
 

August 2010 - Mike Pinkerton, New Zealand: Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Mainstream Land Surveying. This paper has been prepared and presented at the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney, Australia, 11-16 April 2010. This paper provides a good introduction for those who are thinking about the question whether to invest in laser scanning. Handouts of this presentation as a .pdf file.
 

July 2010 - John Hannah, New Zealand: The Difficulties in Using Tide Gauges to Monitor Long-Term Sea Level Change. The article is a peer reviewed paper and was presented at the XXIV FIG Congress in Sydney 11-16 April 2010 in the session on Vertical Reference Frame.  Handouts of this presentation as a .pdf file. John Hannah is a Registered Professional Surveyor and is a former President of the NZ Institute of Surveyors.
 

June 2010 - Mohamed El-Sioufi: Climate Change and Sustainable Cities: Major Challenges Facing Cities and Urban Settlements in the Coming Decades. The paper was presented as a keynote presentation at the XXIV FIG Congress in Sydney 11-16 April 2010 in the plenary session on "The Big Challenges". Dr. El-Sioufi is Head of the Shelter Branch at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT.
 

May 2010 - Abbas Rajabifard, Australia: Spatially Enabled Government and Society - the Global Perspective. The paper was presented as a keynote presentation at the XXIV FIG Congress in Sydney 11-16 April 2010 in plenary session on spatially enabled society. Dr. Rajabifard is the President of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association. He is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration at the Department of Geomatics, the University of Melbourne. At the FIG Congress in Sydney FIG and GSDI signed a memorandum of understanding.
 

April 2010 - Warwick Watkins and Pedro Harris, Australia: Spatially Enabled Government in New South Wales, Australia. This paper is based on the keynote presentation of Warwick Watkins, Surveyor General of New South Wales, that he presented at the 2nd plenary session on Spatially Enabled Society at the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney. The article gives an introduction to the advanced conceptual approach to SDI as used by the Land and Property Management Authority in New South Wales, Australia.
 

March 2010 - Chryssy Potsiou, Greece (edit.), Yerach Doytsher, Israel, Paul Kelly, Australia, Rafic Khouri, France, Robin McLaren, United Kingdom and Hartmut Mueller, Germany: Rapid Urbanization and Mega Cities: The Need for Spatial Information Management. This paper has been prepared for the XXIV FIG International Congress in Sydney, Australia, 11-16 April, 2010 and will be presented in the Commission 3 Key Note Session "SIM in Support of Mega City Management". The paper gives an introduction to FIG publication no. 48 – “Rapid Urbanization and Mega Cities: The Need for Spatial Information Management” that will be launched in Sydney.
 

February 2010 - Jude Wallace, Australia: Land Acquisition in Developing Economies. This paper is based on the keynote presentation that Jude Wallace gave at the 7th FIG Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 19-22 October 2009. This invited paper addresses the issue of land acquisition in emerging economies that will be further explored in the FIG publication to be launched at the FIG Congress in Sydney in April 2010.
 

January 2010 - Teo Chee Hai, FIG Vice President, Malaysia - Building the Capacity: Professionalism and Ethics. This paper has been prepared and presented as a keynote presentation at the 7th FIG Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 19-22 October 2009. Handouts of the Powerpoint presentation are available at: http://www.fig.net/pub/vietnam/ppt/ps03/ps03_teo_ppt_3785.pdf.

2009

• December 2009 - Volker Schwieger, Germany, Mikael Lilje, Sweden, Rob Sarib, Australia - GNSS CORS - Reference Frames and Services. This paper has been prepared and presented at the 7th FIG Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 19-22 October 2009.
   
• November 2009 - Keith Bell - Trends in Land Administration and Management with Particular Reference to World Bank Support for Projects in the East Asia Region. This paper has been prepared and presented as a keynote presentation at the 7th FIG Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 19-22 October 2009.
   
• October 2009 - Isaac Boateng - Spatial Planning and Climate Change Adaption in Coastal Regions: The Case of Vietnam. This paper has been prepared for presentation at the 7th FIG Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 19-22 October 2009 and offers an interesting view to one of the key themes of the conference.
   
• September 2009 - Habtemicael Weldegiorgis - Cadastral System in Eritrea: Practice, Constraints and Prospects. This is a peer reviewed for the FIG Working Week in Eilat, Israel, 3-8 May 2009. This paper has received a grant from the FIG Foundation to allow the author to attend the conference and present his paper.
   
• August 2009 - Paul van der Molen - Cadastres and Climate Change. This is a peer reviewed paper that has been prepared and presented at the FIG Working Week in Eilat, Israel, 3-8 May 2009.
   
• July 2009 - Stig Enemark - Facing the Global Agenda – Focus on Land Governance. This paper is based on the keynote presentation that Prof. Stig Enemark, FIG President gave at the FIG Working Week in Eilat, Israel, 3-8 May 2009.
   
• June 2009 - Rudolf Staiger - Push the Button – or Does the “Art of Measurement” Still Exist? This paper has been prepared and presented as a keynote presentation in Plenary Session 3 – GNSS, Geo-sciences and Surveying at the FIG Working Week 2009 in Eilat, Israel, 7 May 2009.
   
• May 2009 - Jude Wallace - Making Land Markets Work for All. This paper was prepared and presented for the first time in session MKT1: Potential and Challenges for Land Markets at the FIG and World Bank Conference on Land Governance in Support of the MDGs: Responding to New Challenges, Washington DC, USA, 9-10 March 2009.
   
• April 2009 - Silke Boos and Hartmut Müller, Germany - SDI Developments in the World’s Currently Existing Mega Cities. This paper has been prepared as part of FIG Commission 3 WG 3.2 (Spatial Data Infrastructure) project. Interim reports of the project have been presented at the Commission 3 Workshop “Spatial Information for Sustainable Management of Urban Areas” in Mainz, Germany, 2-4 February 2009 and will be presented at the FIG Working Week in Eilat, Israel, 3-8 May 2009. Final report will be presented at the FIG Congress in Sydney, Australia in April 2010.

• March 2009 - Haim Srebro, Israel - A Status Report of the Activity of the Survey of Israel. This paper has been prepared for the presentation at the FIG Working Week 2009 in Eilat, Israel, 3-8 May 2009.

• February 2009 - Kauko Viitanen, Finland and Ibimina Kakulu, Nigeria - Global Concerns in Compulsory Purchase and Compensation Processes. This paper has been prepared and presented at the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, Sweden 14-19 June 2008.

• January 2009 - Prof. Bela Markus, Hungary - Thinking about e-Learning. This paper was prepared and presented as a keynote presentation at the FIG International Workshop 2008 ”Sharing Good Practices: E-learning in Surveying, Geo-information Sciences and Land Administration” in Enschede, the Netherlands, 11-13 June 2008.

2008

• December 2008 - Mr. Willi Zimmermann, Germany - Effective and Transparent Management of Public Land. This paper is an updated version of the paper that has been presented at the FIG/FAO/CNG International Seminar on State and Public Land Management in Verona, Italy, 9-10 September 2008.
   
• November 2008 - Ms. Kari Strande, Norway - e-Government for e-Citizens – NSDI as Tools in Good Governance Examples from eNorway and Norway Digital. This paper is an updated version of the paper that was presented at the FIG Working Week 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden, 14-19 June 2008.
   
• October 2008 - Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director UN-HABITAT - Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing. This paper has been presented as the keynote address at the Opening Ceremony of the FIG Working Week 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden 15 June 2008.
   
• September 2008 - Mr. David Martin, France - Review of Standards, Best Practice, Testing and Calibration in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). This paper has been prepared for and was presented at the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, Sweden 14-19 June 2008.
   
• August 2008 - Mr. Tony Burns and Dr. Kate Dalrymple, Australia - Conceptual Framework for Governance in Land Administration. This paper has been prepared and was presented at the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, Sweden 14-19 June 2008.
   
• July 2008 - Mr. Cemal Özgür Kivilcim, Turkey and Ms. Chris McAlister, Australia - A Model for Integrating Generations - Young Surveyors Working Group. This paper has been prepared and presented at the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, Sweden 14-19 June 2008.
   
• June 2008 - Mrs. Agneta Ericsson, Sweden - What Makes the Swedish Cadastral System so Special and Successful? This paper has been prepared for presentation at the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, Sweden 14-19 June 2008.
   
• May 2008 - Dr. Mathias Lemmens, Christiaan Lemmen and Martin Wubbe, the Netherlands - Pictometry: Potentials for Land Administration. This paper was originally prepared for and presented at the 6th FIG Regional Conference in San José, Costa Rica 12-15 November 2007.
   
• April 2008 - Prof Ian P. Williamson, Australia - Using Cadastres to Support Sustainable Development. This paper was presented for the first time at the Spanish IX National Congress of Surveying Engineers TOP-CART 2008 in Valencia, Spain 18-21 February 2008.
   
• March 2008 - Neil D. Weston, Gerald L. Mader, Tomás Soler, USA: Opus Projects – A Web-Based Application To Administer And Process Multi-Day Gps Campaign Data. This paper was presented at the FIG Working Week 2007 in Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007.
   
• February 2008 - Stephen T. Mague and Robert W. Foster, USA: Where's the Shoreline? Sources of Historical High Water Lines Developed in the Context of Massachusetts Coastal Regulations.  This paper was presented at the 6th FIG Regional Conference in San José, Costa Rica, 12-15 November 2007.
   
• January 2008 - Grenville Barnes, USA: Developing Cost-effective and Resilient Land Administration Systems in Latin America. This paper was presented at the 6th FIG Regional Conference 2007 in San José, Costa Rica, 12-15 November 2007.

2007

• December 2007 - Teo Chee Hai, Malaysia: Changing the Game: Sustaining the Profession.  This paper presented at the 6th FIG Regional Conference 2007 in San José, Costa Rica, 12-15 November 2007.
   
• November 2007 - Diane Dumashie, United Kingdom: Land, Sea and People: Equitable Access to Coastal Resources. This article was presented as a keynote paper at the 6th FIG Regional Conference 2007 in San José, Costa Rica, 12-15 November 2007.
   
• October 2007 - Frances Plimmer, United Kingdom: Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications. This paper was also presented in a technical session during the FIG Working Week 2007 in Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007
   
• September 2007 - Thomas Kalbro, Sweden: Private Compulsory Acquisition and the Public Interest Requirement. This paper was presented at the FIG Commission 9 Seminar in Helsinki, Finland in September 2007
   
• August 2007 - Volker Schwieger, Germany: High-Sensitivity GNSS – The Low-Cost Future of GPS?! This paper was also presented in a technical session at the FIG Working Week 2007 in Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007
   
• July 2007 - Rob Mahoney, Peter Dale and Robin McLaren, United Kingdom: Land Markets – Why are they required and how will they develop? This paper was also presented in a technical session at the FIG WW2007 in Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007
   
• June 2007 -  Peter Byrne and Gail Kelly, Australia: The ABC of x,y,z - 21 Principles for Consideration by Surveyors and Other Geospatial Professionals. This paper was also presented in a technical session at the FIG WW2007 in Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007
   
• May 2007 - Paul Kelly, Chair of FIG Commission 3 Working Group 3.2: Role of Spatial Data Infrastructures in Managing Our Cities. This paper was presented as keynote address at the FIG Commission 3 2007 Annual Meeting and Workshop “Spatial Information Management Toward Legalizing Informal Urban Development”, Sounio, Athens, Greece, 28-31 March 2007
   
• April 2007 - Stig Enemark, FIG President: Integrated Land-Use Management for Sustainable Development. This article was also presented at a FIG Commission 3 Workshop in Athens, Greece, March 28-31, 2007
   
• March 2007 -  Paul van der Molen and Arbind Tuladhar, International Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation: Corruption and Land Administration. This article was also presented as a paper in a technical session during the 23rd FIG Congress in October 2006 in Munich, Germany.
   
• February 2007 - Javier Ventura-Traveset, Ankit Raj Mathur and Felix Toran, European Space Agency (ESA), EGNOS Project, and Hans-Peter Plag, University of Nevada, USA: Provision of Emergency Communication Messages through Satellite Based Augmentation Systems for GNSS: The ESA ALIVE Concept.
   
• January 2007 - Dr. Lars Reuterswärd, Director of the Shelter and Sustainable Human Settlements Development Division of UN-Habitat: Urban-Rural Interrelationship in Land Administration – Urban Perspective. This paper is written and presented as a keynote presentation at the XXIII FIG Congress in Munich, Germany, 8-13 October 2006.

2006

• December 2006 - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Magel, FIG President: Changing FIG – Model for a Changing World. Farewell speech at the Handover Ceremony on 2 December 2006 in Münster, Germany.
   
• November 2006 - Mr. Keith Clifford Bell, World Bank: World Bank Support for Land Administration and Management: Responding to the Challenges of the Millennium Development Goals. This paper is written and presented at the XXIII FIG Congress in Munich, Germany, 8-13 October 2006.
   
• October 2006 - Ms. Nsame Nsemiwe, Zambia: Gender Dimensions of Land Customary Inheritance under Customary Tenure in Zambia. This paper is based on the paper written and presented by Ms. Nsame Nsemiwe at the XXIII FIG Congress in Munich, Germany, 8-13 October 2006. The FIG Council has decided to award the Congress Prize to two papers presented by Ms. Nsemiwe. The other paper is "Negotiating the Interface: Struggles Involved in the Upgrading of Informal Settlements -a Case Study of Nkandabwe in Kitwe, Zambia".
   
• September 2006 - Dr. Michael Sutherland and Dr. Sue Nichols, Canada: Issues in the Governance of Marine Spaces. This paper is the introduction chapter of FIG publication no. 36 “Administering Marine Spaces: International issues”. This publication is result of FIG Commissions 4 & 7 Working Group 4.3 and published by FIG in September 2006.
   
• August 2006 - Ms. Gabriele Dasse, Germany: Enhancing the Representation of Under-Represented Groups in FIG. This paper is based on the FIG publication no 35 ”Enhancing the Representation of Under-represented Groups in FIG”, Copenhagen 2006.
   
• July 2006 - Mr. Gerhard Muggenhuber, Austria and Mr. Rob Mahoney, United Kingdom -  Changing Minds in an Evolving Society
   
• June 2006 - Mr. Markku Markkula, Finland - Creating Favourable Conditions for Knowledge Society through Knowledge Management, eGovernance and eLearning. This paper has been prepared and presented as a keynote presentation at the FIG Workshop on e-Governance, Knowledge Management and e-Learning in Budapest, Hungary, 27-29 April 2006. This workshop was co-organised by FIG Commissions 2,3 and 7.
   
• May 2006 - Chief Kumbun-Naa Yiri II, Ghana - Customary Lands Administration and Good Governance – The State and the Traditional Rulers Interface. This paper has been written for the 5th FIG Regional Conference – Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance in Accra, Ghana, March 8-11, 2006.
   
• April 2006 - Surv. (Chief) Innocent N. Egbuh, Nigeria - Charting Nigerian Waters for Safer Navigation. This article has been presented at the 5th FIG Regional Conference – Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance to be held in Accra, Ghana, March 8-11, 2006.
   
• March 2006 - Dr. Babette Wehrmann, Germany - Cadastre in Itself Won’t Solve the Problem: The Role of Institutional Change and Psychological Motivations in Land Conflicts – Cases from Africa. This article has been prepared for the 5th FIG Regional Conference - Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance, Accra, Ghana, March 8-11, 2006.
   
• February 2006 - Dr. Isaac Bonsu Karikari, Ghana - Ghana’s Land Administration Project (LAP) and Land Information Systems (LIS) Implementation: The Issues. This article has been prepared for the 5th FIG Regional Conference - Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance to be held in Accra, Ghana, March 8-11, 2006.
   
• January 2006 - Tony S. Haroen, Chairul B. Achmad and Wenny Rusmawar, Indonesia - Cadastral Reconstruction in Aceh: A Newborn Concept of Adjudication. This article has been presented for the first time at the South East Survey Congress in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam, 21-25 November 2005. It is published as the Article of the Month to show respect to the memory of the victims of the tsunami disaster in December 2005.

2005

• December 2005 - FIG President Univ. Professor Dr.-Ing. Holger Magel - About Surveyors’ Commitment, Role and Education for Society and Sustainable Development. Keynote Address at the Opening Ceremony of the 8th SEASC 2005 on 22 November 2005 in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam.
   
• November 2005 - Adam J. Kerr, United Kingdom - Hydrography and Disaster Management. This paper has been for the first time presented at the FIG Forum at the Intergeo 2005 in Düsseldorf, Germany, 4 October 2005.
   
• October 2005 - Chris Rizos, Matthew B. Higgins and S. Hewitson, Australia - New Global Navigation Satellite System Developments and Their Impact on Survey Service Providers and Surveyors. This article is based on a paper in Proceedings of SSC2005 Spatial Intelligence, Innovation and Praxis: The national biennial Conference of the Spatial Sciences Institute, September 2005. Melbourne: Spatial Sciences Institute. ISBN 0-9581366-2-9
   
• September 2005 - Mette Fosgaard Kragh, Denmark - New Danish Regional Development Plans – An Effort of Combining Economy and Spatial Aspects for Urban and Rural Areas. This article was for the first time presented at the FIG/GSDI Conference in Cairo, Egypt, 16-21 April 2005.
   
• August 2005 - Ian P. Williamson, Australia - Opportunities for Surveyors in Modern Land Markets. This paper was for the first time presented at the FIG/GSDI Conference in Cairo, Egypt, 16-21 April 2005.
   
• July 2005 -  Dorine A. J. Burmanje, Chair of the Board Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency, The Netherlands - Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration in Europe. This paper has been prepared and presented as a keynote presentation in a plenary session ”Co-operation between Land Administration and SDI” at the FIG/GSDI Conference in Cairo, Egypt, 16-21 April 2005. It is based on material presented during a UN/FIG/PC IDEA Conference in Aguascalientes, Mexico in November 2004.
   
• June 2005 - Richard Wonnacott, South Africa - AFREF - Background and Progress towards a Unified Reference System for Africa. This paper has been prepared and presented at the FIG Working Week / GSDI-8 Conference in Cairo, Egypt, April 16-21, 2005.
   
• May 2005 - Daniel Roberge, Canada: After the Tsunami – How the Surveying Profession Can Participate in the Reconstruction. This paper has been prepared and presented at the FIG Working Week / GSDI-8 Conference in Cairo, Egypt, April 16-21, 2005. It is also a contribution to the discussion how professional associations can contribute to risk and disaster management. At its meeting in Cairo the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies decided to establish an ad hoc working party on risk and disaster management, chaired by Prof. Bengt Rystedt from ICA
   
• April 2005 - Stig Enemark, Denmark and John Parker, Australia: The Development of Land Information Policies in the Americas
   
• March 2005 - John Brock, Australia: Who Were the First Surveyors?
  Four Surveyors of the Gods: In the XVIII Dynasty of Egypt – New Kingdom c. 1400 B.C.
   
• February 2005 - David J. Powell, FRICS, MAE, Chairman of the Geomatics Faculty of the R.I.C.S., United Kingdom: Boundary Dispute Resolution in England & Wales – Surveyors and Lawyers Working Together to Resolve Problems
   
• January 2005 - Univ. Prof. Dr-Ing. Holger Magel, FIG President: Surveyors and Politics – the Need for Dialogue. This summary is based on the purely orally given lecture of Univ. Prof. Holger Magel, President of FIG at the RICS as the “Christmas Lecture” of the Geomatics Faculty, December 2, 2004.

2004

• December 2004 - Klaus Deininger, World Bank: Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction: Key Issues and Challenges Ahead. This paper was presented for the first time at the UN, FIG, PC IDEA Inter-regional Special Forum on The Building of Land Information Policies in the Americas in Aguascalientes, Mexico 26-27 October 2004
   
• November 2004 - Teo Chee Hai, Malaysia: Mutual Recognition of Surveying Qualifications within the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services. This paper has been for the first time represented as a keynote presentation at the 3rd FIG Regional Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia 6 October 2004.
   
• October 2004 - Marie Christine Robidoux, C.L.S., LL.M., Calgary Alberta, Canada: Geomatics and Traditional Knowledge – Liidlii Ku’e First Nation. This report was originally prepared for FIG Foundation and submitted in October 2003. It has been updated in August 2004.
   
• September 2004 - Helge Onsrud, Senior Advisor, Statens kartverk Norway: Land Administration in Europe. This article is based on a keynote presentation that the author gave at the FIG Working Week in Athens in May 2004.
   
• August 2004 - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Theo Kötter, University of Bonn, Germany: Risks and Opportunities of Urbanisation and Megacities. This paper was for the first time presented as a keynote presentation at the plenary session of the FIG Working Week 2004 in Athens, Greece 25 May 2004.
   
• July 2004 - Prof. Gerhard Beutler, President President of the International Association of Geodesy, IAG, Switzerland: Revolution in Geodesy and Surveying. This paper was for the first time presented as a keynote presentation at the plenary session of the FIG Working Week 2004 in Athens, Greece 24 May 2004.
   
• June 2004 - Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Magel, FIG President: Breathing the Olympic Spirit - The Mission of FIG in the 21st Century. This paper was for the first time presented as the opening speech at the FIG Working Week 2004 in Athens, Greece, 23 May 2004.
   
• May 2004 - Dr.-Ing. Ralf Schroth, FIG Vice President, Germany: Direct Geo-Referencing in Practical Applications. This paper was for the first time presented at the ISPRS workshop WG 1/5 about Theory, Technology and Realities of Inertial/GPS Sensor Orientation in Castelldefels/Barcelona, Spain, 23 September 2003. It has been partly revised for the FIG Article of the Month published in May 2004
   
• April 2004 - Alick R. Mwanza, Zambia: White Collar Malpractices in Cadastral Surveying and their Effects on Secure Land Tenure and Sustainable Development. This paper has been produced with the financial support of the FIG Foundation.
   
• March 2004 - Joel Bailey, Amanda Lewis and Frances Plimmer, United Kingdom: Locating the “Country” in Town and Country Planning: the Urban Bias in English Planning. This paper has been produced with the financial support of the FIG Foundation.
   
• February 2004 - Mr. Svein Tveitdal, Director, Division of Environmental Conventions and Division of Environmental Policy Implementation, UNEP: Urban-Rural Interrelationship: Condition for Sustainable Development. This paper was first presented at the 2nd FIG Regional Conference for Africa and the Arab Countries in Marrakech, Morocco, December 2-5, 2003.
   
• January 2004 - Prof. Neville Ying, Professor of Business Develoment & Director, Labour Studies at the Mona School of Business, University of West Indies, Jamaica: Contact a Land Surveyor - Speech for the 75th Anniversary Function for Land Surveyors Association. This paper was first presented as a keynote speech at the occasion of the 75th Anniversary Function for the LSAJ in Kingston, October 31, 2003.

2003

• December 2003 - Iain Greenway, Chair, FIG Standards Network: Standards – Are They Relevant in a Surveyor’s World? This article was for the first time presented at the FIG Working Week and 125th Anniversary in Paris, France 13-17 April, 2003. It has been updated in November 2003 for the FIG series Article of the Month.
   
• November 2003 - Prof. Heinz Rüther, South Africa: The Situation of Geomatics Education in Africa – An Endangered Profession. Keynote paper at the 2nd FIG Regional Conference, Marrakech, Morocco, December 2-5, 2003 and background paper for the Special Round Table on Surveying/GIS Education in Africa, Marrakech, December 2, 2003.
   
• October 2003 - Mr. Bogdan Ney and Mr. Andrzej Sambura, Poland: IT Developments Enabling Customer-Oriented Cadastre. Originally represented at the 2nd Cadastral Congress, September 19-21, 2003 in Krakow, Poland
   
• September 2003 - Mr. Gerhard Muggenhuber, Chair of FIG Commission 3: Spatial Information for Sustainable Resource Management
   
• August 2003 - FIG President Univ.-Prof. Dr-Ing. Holger Magel: "Survey and GIS – Bridging the Gap". Originally presented as the Opening Speech at the ESRI “Survey and GIS Summit – Bridging the Gap 2003” in San Diego, California, USA, 6 July, 2003
   
• July 2003 - Prof. Stig Enemark: "Capacity Building for Developing - Sustainable Land Administration Infrastructures". Originally presented at the UN ECE WPLA / FIG Workshop in Athens in May 2003.
  In his article Prof. Enemark argues that "when a project is established to create land administration infrastructures, it is critical that capacity building is a mainstream component of the project. The capacity building aspect should be addressed up front, not as an add-on.

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International Federation of Surveyors, FIG, is a United Nations and World Bank recognized non-governmental organization of national member associations and covers the whole range of professional fields within the global surveying community. It provides an international forum for discussion and development aiming to promote professional practice and standards.

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