VGI-based spatial data infrastructure for land administration

Abstract

The general public and land administration organizations have long recognized the need to establish and record legal ownership of property and land. To create land ownership records, developing countries have recently begun to public participation methods. For this purpose, a move to the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to aggregate heterogeneous geospatial information about the property and create interoperability between organizations and stakeholders is unavoidable. Solutions for public participation must also be provided. Designing and developing a model under the SDI policy, based on an open-source architecture, and based on volunteered geographic information (VGI) and citizen-wide participation in collecting rights-based spatial data is the subject of this study. Volunteered Rights-based Spatial Data Infrastructure (VRSDI) is a framework that was proposed and implemented in this study to help with the low-cost, high-speed voluntary collection of land and property legal information and land management in Iran. VRSDI assists people in defining land and property ownership rights, detecting potential disputes, seizures, or conflicts with neighbors, as well as their limits and obligations for land management through rights-based spatial data. VRSDI was conceptualized and implemented using a Software as a Service (SaaS) approach, including solutions for data and service quality control based on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. It benefits from an open-source multi-tier architecture and powerful components, including the AJAX engine, the VGI engine, the service adapter, and the Workflow engine. Also discussed is policymaking for the effective adoption of VGI in a VRSDI and solutions for spatial accuracy measurement and quality control. The findings demonstrated that an approach like this might lead to integrated land management by including citizens and the government.