Scaling up UAVs for land administration: Towards the plateau of productivity

Claudia Stöcker,Rohan Bennett,Mila Koeva,Francesco Nex,Jaap Zevenbergen

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105930

Claudia Stöcker, Rohan Bennett + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105930

Copy DOI

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are considered an innovative tool for land administration. However, despite the prospects and market opportunities in the domain, there is a gap between experimentation and widespread technology diffusion. In this work, the Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA) and the Hype Cycle concept are integrated to understand the dynamics of the innovation process of UAVs for the land administration sector. Empirical data stems from literature and interviews of UAV and land administration experts worldwide. The majority of experts estimate UAV technology to be in a phase in which the innovation needs to overcome initial unmet expectations to foster market development and increased adoption. The assessment indicates the changing importance of different FELA pathways during this process. Enabling laws and policies and supporting governance, accountability and institutions are crucial to create such a UAV-friendly national ecosystem early on and allay exaggerated expectations. Once this ecosystem has been made, market demand is expected to surge driven by partnerships, adapted standards, tech advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns, highlighting the superiority of high-resolution data amongst other benefits of UAV technology. These insights can be used as a baseline to direct national strategic decisions towards the increased adoption of UAVs in land administration.

Highlights

Providing equitable land and resource access for all people by 2030 is implicit and explicit to multiple targets of the Sustainable Development Goals promulgated by the United Nations (UN, 2015)
Based on the concept of Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF) prepared by UNGGIM, FELA specifies nine strategic pathways to strive for effective land administration
The Hype Cycle curve is analysed based on reflections of the interviewees towards the emergence of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) technology in land administration

Summary

Introduction

Providing equitable land and resource access for all people by 2030 is implicit and explicit to multiple targets of the Sustainable Development Goals promulgated by the United Nations (UN, 2015). Pilot studies have been carried out in different land administra tion contexts to test the validity of those innovations, such as remote sensing technologies (Santos, Fletschner and Daconto, 2014; Stocker et al, 2019; Koeva et al, 2020), participatory mapping (Asiama, Bennett and Zevenbergen, 2017; Aditya et al, 2020), geo-cloud processing (Koeva et al, 2021), fit-for-purpose land administration (Enemark, McLaren and Lemmen, 2016), pro-poor land administration (Zeven bergen et al, 2013; Hendriks et al, 2019), and the continuum of land rights (UN-Habitat and GLTN, 2015), amongst others. It is recognised and should be noted that even though nine pathways are defined, some of the focus areas are linked and necessarily overlap (UNGGIM, 2020)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion