www.Opencadastre.org : exploring potential avenues and concerns
Laarakker, Peter & Walter de Vries
In search of alternative cadastral information systems for local communities, the openstreetmap.org provided an appealing avenue. This article explores if the analogy of opencadastre.org could be a realistic and feasible endavour. Studies on volunteered geographic information (VGI) and open systems have generated potential avenues of applications and a list of critical concerns. Our study hypothesized that in the cadastral domain many of such potential avenues and concerns were also valid when starting up an opencadastre application. We conducted an extensive inventory of professional opinions on the potential of an opencadastre application through various discussion boards on Linkedin. After 4 months, we were summarized and categorized the discussions, and compared the results to the list of potential avenues and concerns from the VGI and open systems community. The results show that the regulatory nature of the cadastral domain complicates open access and participation of a potential opencadastre. The opencadastre concerns coincide with many of the technical concerns of the VGI and open systems. On the socio-organizational and legal side there are fundmenatal differences. The most valuable potential application of an opencadastre relates to the exploratory phases of setting up of land registrations. The visualization aspect and the potential of participation could increase the legitimacy of land adjudication and delimitation of boundaries. Opencadastre could be complementary for land administration practices when there are no formal cadastral systems are present. However, security and protection of data remains a potential problematic area. Further research should therefore focus on piloting an opencadastre application in a real-life setting.
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