Between the Poles

Benefits of a 3D land and property information system for sustainable urbanization

At the GSDI 13 conference in Quebec City, Serene Ho and Abbas Rajabifard from Australia delivered a paper on the benefits of a 3D land and property information system (3D-LPIS) to an increasingly urbanized society.  70% of the population of Australia lives in urban centres and this proportion is increasing.

The land administration system in Australia is widely regarded to be of high quality and integrity, but as in Canada, the lack of a single federal authority with responsibility for land administration makes it difficult to aggregate information collected at local and state levels up to the national level.  This represents an inhibitor to understanding increasingly complex urban challenges from a national perspective.

In 2011 the federal government in consultation with the state governments published the National Urban Policy (NUP) that attempted to delineate the broad urban challenges Australia is facing and the implications for land and property management.  The NUP defines the primary goals of government policy as

• improving productivity
• improving sustainability and resilience of built and natural environment
• improving the liveability in terms of housing, transport and community services
• improving governance through integration of processes, engagement and evaluation.

In this paper the authors argue that implementing the NUP should be a key driver for the development of a 3D‐LPIS in Australia.

Improving productivity

Efficiencies in productivity would be gained from more holistic planning, incorporating social and economic aspects as well as improving transportation modes and improving land use and development. A 3D‐LPIS provides a platform to catalogue and connect ‘above the line’ with ‘below the line’ interests of a given property, resulting in improved analytical capabilities and potentially dramatically improving current regulatory processes.

Improving sustainability

Improving the sustainability of the built and natural environments involves protection of the environment, improvements in air and water quality, sustainable management and increasing the ability of cities to adapt and respond to natural disasters. Recent Australian legislation on greenhouse gas emissions means that carbon emissions and energy information are becoming mandatory elements of modern land administration system in Australia. A 3D-LPIS would provide the appropriate infrastructure for collecting, managing and visualizing this information, because land and property information is used as the common denominator. This information could then be accessed and used by relevant industries such as risk and disaster management, for example, as a 3D model is already being used for emergency planning and management in Sydney Down Under.

Improving liveability

A 3D‐LPIS would help planners achieve better urban design by providing a visual representation to planners and the public of the types of land use currently in place, as well as the types of structures and how these may impact upon the well‐being of residents in adjacent properties. It would help analyze land use by spatial clustering of land use type to ensure an appropriate mixture of land use. And It would provide an intuitive spatial representation of land use policies to foster a better understanding of these policies among the public and evaluate their relevance to the communities they serve.

Improving governance

A 3D‐LPIS could facilitate open access of information and communication between stakeholders by presenting land and property data in an intuitive 3D visualization. This would support federal initiatives supporting open, transparent government in Australia.  This system would not only link citizens with governments and industry with each other, it could link the various levels and branches of governments dealing with land and property matters.

Open geo data in the Netherlands since January 2012

Some time ago I blogged about freely available government geospatial data in various parts of the world, but mentioned that in the Netherlands only some data was freely avaiilable.  At the recent Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam, Melanie Schulz van Haegen-Maas Geesteranus, Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment said that in January the government of the Netherlands announced that all government geo data is available to the public (with some exceptions) and that the Netherlands topographic database was made open and free instead of costing €50 000. According to EPSIplatform in October of last year the Dutch government announced it would release core geo data sets to the public free of charge for re-use, starting January 1st 2012 under a Creative Commons By Attribution license.  On January 1st, the Dutch OpenStreetMap community filed a request to obtain the geo data of the Dutch Cadastre (Kadastre).  The Kadastre granted the request on 3 January, and provided some 5 Gigabytes of data to OpenStreetMap.  The Dutch Cadastre (parcels) is available on Google Map.  The Dutch government released the Dutch national road data set in December.  Postcodes have also been released without conditions for re-use.  The most important geo data sets in the Netherlands are now available for all types of re-use free of charge.

The first time I had come across a government planning to use a Creative Commons license for sharing geospatial data was at an Spatial Sceinces Institute (SSI) conference in Hobart, Tasmania in 2007 where two people from the government of Queenland proposed this as a way of sharing geospatial data within the government of Queensland.  Of course OpenStreetMap used a Creative Commons license for years until April of this year, when it was replaced by a license specifically tailored for geo data.

Geospatial World Forum: Creating a land registry system in Rwanda in less than five years

At the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam today Didier Sagashya, Deputy Director General of Lands and Mapping Department in the government of Rwanda gave a fascinating presentation about creating a land adminstration system in Rwanda.

The Organic Law of 2005 defined a new land tenure system based on security of tenure and that land administration is mandatory. There are an estimated 10 million parcels in Rwanda which has one of the highest national population densities in the world, about 400 people per km². 

Starting in 2009 Rwanda set out to create a land registry.  One of the  most interesting aspects of the Rwandan approach is that it is not based on a traditionally-surveyed cadastre.  Instead it relies on nation-wide high resolution (25 cm) photo imagery and a process that involves consulting with local people and drawing boundaries on the high resolution imagery.  At this point about 2.7 million parcels have been defined and adjudicated and land registry titles printed.  It is expected that registration of all of the 10 million parcels will be completed by 2013, which is a remarkable achievement, especially in less than five years.

The major benefit of a national land registry system is that it enables land to participate in the national economy.  For example, land can be used as collateral in applying for bank loans.  One of the interesting statistics that Didier mentioned was that last year the number of bank loan applications involving land as a collateral was about 10,000 for the entire year.  In the first quarter of 1012, the number of bank loan applications is already 6000, which suggest people are already beginning to take advantage of the new land registry system.

The other major impact that Didier mentioned that a national land registry system can have is that it can lead to sustainable land management, less erosion, for example, because presumeably if you own something you take better care of it.  This effect tends to be long-term, and Didier did not have statistics to show that this is happening, but this is one of the outcomes they are monitoring, in addition to bank loans.

California Supreme Court to hear case for free and open access to county geospatial data

I blogged previously about a court case in 2009 involving Santa Clara County in California that was decided in favour of free and open access to county GIS data under California's Public Records Acts (PRA). 

On May 31, 2011 a different California appelate court decided in favour of  Orange County which charges $375,000 for their parcel database. After trying to obtain Orange County's parcel file at the cost of reproduction, in 2009 the Sierra Club initiated a lawsuit against Orange County under the PRA.  In 2010, the Superior Court decided that the PRA exempts GIS databases from public record disclosure because the court concluded that they are "computer software developed by a state or local agency".  

A California appellate court agreed with the Orange County Supreme Court that a GIS database is covered by the PRA software exclusion because it concluded that "computer mapping systems" as defined by the PRA includes software and data.  Since this decision conflicts with the other California appellate court's decision in the case of Santa Clara County, the Sierra Club has appealed the question of access to Orange County's parcel basemap to the California Supreme Court. 

According to a recent article by Bruce Joffe, Orange County's logic in the case is that GIS includes software and data (citing Esri's definition that says "GIS is a collection of software and data"); that the County's Landbase is a GIS; that GIS is a type of Computer Mapping System; that CMS is excluded bySection 6254.9 of the PRA; therefore, the County's GIS Landbase data is excluded. The Sierra Club argued that "Computer Mapping System" means a system of software modules, which does not include data; that GIS-formatted data is necessary for the public to analyze the government's decisions using its GIS database; that "includes" means an illustrative example, not an expansion of the definition of software; and that the California Legislature did not intend to exclude data when it passed the software exemption.

Sierra Club's final appeal has been made to the California Supreme Court based on the two County's public records lawsuits for the same kind of data resulted in opposite opinions being an important reason. On September 14, 2011 the Court agreed to hear the case. 

GIS professionals who may be willing to co-sign a GIS amicus brief can contact Bruce Joffe (founder of the Open Data Consortium project) at 510-508-0213, or email Bruce at [email protected].

Towards a 3D cadastre (parcel fabric) for Singapore

In April 2006 at a conference organized by PDS on Pangkor Island in Malaysia, Professor Alias Abdul Rahman from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia talked about 3D cadastres, which are more important in Asia, where urban population densities tend to be higher.  Professsor Alias outlined three approaches for dealing with 3D cadastres

• Administrative tag model - Integrate 2D spatial with tagged information for strata
• Hybrid model - Integrate a 2D cadastre with topological information about 3D structures
• Full 3D model- Requires a complete overhaul of the cadastre to incorporate three dimensions

Professor Alias had developed a pragmatic solution based on the hybrid model that supported topological queries including adjacency using off the shelf products (COTS), for example, Oracle Spatial and AutoCAD Map 3D.

Singapore's motivation for a 3D cadastre

Yesterday at the Asia Geospatial Forum conference here in Jakarta, Soh Kheng Peng of the Singapore Land Authority, which is reponsible for the cadastre (parcel fabric) in Singapore, gave a riveting presentation on the reasons for the importance of a 3D cadastre in Singapore and what the Singapore Land Authority is doing to implement a full 3D cadastre.

Defining the 3D cadastre problem

Soh Kheng Peng made it very clear that a 3D cadastre is in the cards for Singapore, for several reasions.

1. Land developers are being very creative and packaging complex volumetric parcels both underground and above ground.  
2. Current survey techniques cannot capture accurate 3D coordinates.  
3. The current 2D GIS used to capture and store cadastral information is unable to represent volumetric parcels.
4. All strata boundaries are not in the cadastral GIS, making it impossible to perform effective spatial planning for national development goals.

Underground space is heavily used and underground density is increasing.  Underground lots are getting very close to each other and accurate delineation of boundaries is required.

First step toward a full 3D cadastre

The Singapore Land Authority has identified priorities for the first step toward a 3D cadastre.  The first priority is to change survey procedures to enable surveyors to capture accurate 3D information.  This means adopting new technologies and changing legal requirements for surveys.  The next priority is to collect sufficient information in a 3D GIS to support national planning goals.

Basis for virtual Singapore

I've blogged about other cities' efforts to create 3D urban models, for example, Vancouver, and a recent software release focussed on conceptual design for 3D urban environments.  These have been undertaken for planning purposes, for zoning and other bylaw enforcement such as viewports or right to light, or one of the most remarkable recent efforts, Sydney Down Under, for emergency and disaster planning.  But in Singapore Soh Kheng Peng said that the "future 3D cadastre will be the fundamental information for building virtual Singapore."  This means that virtual Singapore will not only be a representation of Singapore in 3D, but will incorporate the legal 3D parcel fabric.