Digital Cadastres Facilitating Land Information Management

DATA COLLECTION 
Field Survey: GPS, 
Total Station 
High Resolution 
Satellite Imagery 
Inter-agency 
data Searches 
Photogrammetry 
DATA PROCESSING 
Format Changes 
Digitizing 
Transformations 
Rasterization 
Vectorisation 
Data 
Integration 
POPULATING 
DATABASE 
INTEGRITY 
CHECKS 
QUALITY 
CONTROL 
INTEGRATION WITH 
ADMINISTRATIVE 
DATABASES 
LAND INFORMATION SYSTEM DEPLOYMENT 
LIS DESIGN* 
Pilot Implementation Design 
Modifications 
Retesting 
Full Deployment 
*Creating Relations, Users, Access Rights, Security Protocols, Desktop Application, Remote 
Application Interface 
Meta data needs be catalogued so that users know where to find the data and the characteristics 
of the data. Storing all spatial data in a global reference system such as WGS84 would solve many 
data integration issues. However, older data sets will have to be transformed. The cadastral 
authority should consider using low-cost land survey data collection techniques suggested in 
Kurwakumire and Chaminama (2012). Special consideration should be made for the parcel 
numbering system for the database as similar stand numbers exist in different suburbs within a 
municipality. The parcel identifier (parcel_ID) is normally the primary key or unique identifier for 
the parcel relation. The parcel is the base unit of the digital cadastre and therefore the parcel_ID is 
linked to rights holders and the nature of the rights held. The parcel_ID can be a combination of the 
stand number and abbreviations of the suburb and municipality name for example 201RSGWR to 
represent stand number 201 in a suburb called River Side and in Gweru municipality. Alternatively, 
considering the adoption of a postcode system in Zimbabwe may be necessary as it aids in the 
creation of an effective and unique parcel identifier. The DSG should have central control of the 
national land database since they are the custodian of basic information relating to land 
(Kurwakumire and Chaminama, 2012) that is also required by other entities or organisations. 
Linking the DSG system to the deeds registry should also be considered so that minimum time is 
lost in searching for records as these systems are housed by two different organisations. 
There is a need to learn from countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. Netherlands has a 
complete digital cadastral layer available at her cadastral office. It is imperative to avoid their 
implementation problems but rather adopt best practices in land administration (Williamson, 2000) 
as per the land administration guidelines and international standards for land administration 
(ISO/TC-211, 2012). 

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South African Journal of Geomatics, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2014 
73