Spatial information opportunities for government

Abstract

Land administration systems (LAS) are now challenged by new technologies and radically different demands for land information for modern governments. Spatial information is good enough to support spatial identification and location enablement applications available in every significant type of software (word processing, spread sheets, professional applications, Web systems, GIS and databases). A place on earth can be defined with precision on the ground and in computers. Digital data can be attached to a location as never before. With appropriate computer facilities and the underpinning interpretative information layers which translate computer language into understandable descriptions of places, governments can potentially identify ‘where’ their policies are happening. A nation's ability to reap the benefits of the spatial enablement of information requires the highest level input from its government and private sectors. These challenges are discussed in the context of developing a vision of iLand, a concept of spatially enabled information for modern government. This article sets this vision in the history of land administration, and the growing reliance on a new kind of information about land and its attributes that is relative and aspatial in regulation of activities and taxation.