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The Boundary Concept in Cadastre 2014

Social life would be impossible without boundaries. Boundaries are the most efficient andeffective tool to organize the societies.

Surveyors are by tradition concerned with boundaries in their cadastre work. Theyconcentrated on parcel boundaries so far. In the modern societies much more other types ofboundaries have been created during the development the legal frameworks concerning landand other natural resources. Most of these newer regulations have an impact on land use butare not localized and documented in an appropriate manner. So traditional cadastre systemsshow only half of the truth, namely the sphere of property rights, but they cannot inform aboutthe restrictive spheres resulting from arrangements for governance of the social life.

The modern technologies allow it, to enlarge the content of the cadastral systems. Theconditions and procedures for modern cadastral systems were outlined in the FIG publication

'Cadastre 2014 - A Vision for a Future Cadastral System'.This paper explains the boundary concept of Cadastre 2014 and shows its implementation inSwitzerland.

1 The Boundary Concept

1.1 Boundaries

A boundary is a dividing line between physical or abstract spheres. They separate areasbelonging to different behaviors, territories, societies, jurisdictions, clans and natural andlegal persons. They mark areas where something is allowed or forbidden. They describe the

edges of spheres were unique conditions exist. The boundary line is the locus whereconditions change.

From the beginning of each life we are concerned with the phenomenon of boundaries. Thefamily rules say how the family members are expected to behave to make the family working.In the education we need boundaries for our children but for the educators as well. We shallrespect boundaries in the relations with our neighbors, friends, and enemies.

Boundaries are not restricted to physical spaces. They can be the edges of social, virtual andabstract spheres. The boundaries regulating the social life are often verbally defined. Theycannot be localized very accurately or not be considered to be only geographical locations.When a geographical space is defined by boundaries, these can be localized in a practicalunlimited accuracy in all dimensions 2D, 3D, and if documented carefully, 4D as well.

Boundaries are most important in our daily life. Every human being needs a personal sphereto survive. The walls and the door of the bedroom protect the personal sphere. The housewall separates a cold and wet from a warm and comfortable atmosphere. The boundary ofthe immovable property gives the owner or user a sphere where he or she can theoreticallydo what they want (but this is increasingly restricted). When crossing a state boundary(border) I will have to follow differing rules and opportunities.

Social life would be impossible without boundaries.

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1.2 Surveyors and the boundaries

We surveyors are the professionals concerned with geographical boundaries. We arefulfilling the noble task of boundary negotiations, boundary fixing and boundary localizationon international, national regional and personal levels successfully since centuries. Ourcolleagues are heads or at least members of the commissions fixing and adapting state,district and municipal boundaries. Property boundaries are still the main business ofsurveyors. They play an important role based on their sound knowledge about boundariesand the prescriptions and procedures and for boundary handling and with a reputation to beobjective and fair-minded.

Cadastral surveyors are licensed to act as specialists for the definition, negotiation andlocalization of boundaries on the behalf of the societies, which have codified normally theguarantee of the private property in their constitution.

In addition it is the surveyors dealing with land consolidation, which is about therearrangement of boundaries to achieve goals set by the land policy.

1.3 How do boundaries come into being?

Boundaries come normally into being by an act of volition, which can be initiated byconventions, by traditional customs, by autonomous decisions, by laws, by contracts.

1.3.1 Examples for boundary formation by conventions

The informal rules of indigenous societies;

The rules of the different religions, e.g. The Ten Commandments stated by the bible;

The rules for social behavior as set up by the German writer Adolph Baron Knigge;

Rules set by parents, families or clans.1.3.2 Examples for boundary formation by own volition

The conquerors have set boundaries of the seized territories by their autonomousdecisions.

The American gold-diggers have initially marked their claims without negotiations.Disputes came up, when the space became scarce.

Different colonial powers have subdivided the land and allocated to their own people,despite the indigenous population had their own apportionment.

In the land reforms the boundaries were fixed by the responsible authorities.

The churches fixed their parish boundaries to organize the work.

The post enterprises fixed boundaries to determine the area where a zip code is valid.

1.3.3 Examples for boundary formations by negotiations

By direct negotiations:

Delineation of state, district, and municipal boundaries, based on results ofnegotiations between these bodies;

The property parcel boundaries based on negotiations between land owners;

By proposals adopted after public consultation:

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Property boundary arrangements after land consolidation or reallocation;

Land valuation boundaries for the definition of the production capacity of agriculturalland based on proposals of specialists adopted by the interested persons and bodies;

By laws discussed and adopted by the citizens or their representatives in a parliament:

The boundaries for land reservation for official purposes according to planning lawsbased on adopted laws by citizens or their representatives in the parliaments;

The boundaries set to protect people from damage in disasters, based on adoptedlaws ;

The Boundaries to prevent certain areas form construction;

The boundaries between use intensity set to achieve development goals;

By individual decisions of competent authorities after having been subject to public hearing:

Prohibition of construction in a certain area and place;

Prohibition of demolition of existing buildings or parts of buildings (the boundary isoften the outer wall of the building);

Exceptions of the regulations for construction and use of buildings.

1.4 Differences in the accuracy of the boundary definitions

Of course the accuracy of the definition of boundaries varies with the type and the purpose ofthe boundaries. In general, the social boundaries are fixed by oral tradition or textualdescriptions. The accuracy of these types of boundaries is depending from the oral tradition,religious traditions, the accuracy of the language, the interpretation by the societies andindividuals.

Where boundaries are connected with land, resources, property, planning, natural andpersonal protection a definition by the location in the field or in a model of the reality isapplied (geographical boundaries), the accuracy is defined by the needs on the one handand the technical possibilities on the other hand.

The needs are influenced by factors as:

Availability of living space;

Density of the population;

Intensity of land use;

Potential of land and land use conflicts.

The technical tools for the location of boundaries provide a steadily increasing accuracy.Today we have reached a performance, which is exceeding the needs. These technical toolsmust be operated in a professional way.

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1.5 Responsibility of the surveyors for boundaries

Surveyors are like all other citizens concerned with the social boundaries as members ofsocieties, parents, teachers, officials and entrepreneurs on the one hand.

On the other hand they are the eligible specialists to deal with geographical boundaries.

They have a long tradition in arranging, re-arranging, documenting and maintaining landobjects with the help of cadastre systems and they can deal with the legal aspectsconcerning land in its broadest sense. They can apply the technology for localizingboundaries in a professional manner.

Unfortunately many surveyors have forgotten about the main task of the boundarydetermination and they concentrate too much on the accuracy of the boundary pointmeasurements. So in many cases, the important work of boundary determination is left toothers.

The boundary determination is applied normally in the traditional cadastral systems to definethe sphere of the property right of the rightful claimant. The process of boundarydetermination and demarcation together with the neighboring owners or possessors beforethe measuring work is well known by the cadastre professionals. This is the most importantstep in cadastral survey both in the establishment and the maintenance process of acadastral system. The owners are the essential key persons and they are given theopportunity to approve their boundaries during the public display of the results of thedocumentation work. The correctness of demarcation of property boundaries are the keyissue in the traditional cadastre systems.

My experience shows that the important boundary determination and demarcation is oftennot applied properly. Fearing the effort necessary to involve and to deal with the rightful

claimants, cloudy procedures are applied to get somehow a definition of the boundaries.Instead quite a lot of money is spent for often ineffective public awareness campaigns. Butthe best public awareness campaign is still the direct work with the rightful claimants.

An important effect of the boundary concept is the fact, that in an IT environment the areas ofthe parcels are the result of a calculation and have no error margin any more. Manyprofessionals are not aware and invest too much effort in the area question. We have toexplain the people that if the boundary determination is approved, the resulting area and itschanges are to be accepted. The boundary is the key issue of the cadastral professionals.

The same concept is valid for the restrictions of the property rights resulting from the legalarrangements as can be seen from figure 7.

The boundaries of the restricting spheres outline a landobject and they have a similarcharacteristic as parcel boundaries, but the definition process is different. The society as awhole defines the boundaries of the spheres of restrictions when it adopts a law together withthe respective plans. In Cadastre 2014 the specialists will have the task to take care of thecorrect handling of the boundaries of the land objects restricting the property with the samediligence, reliability and accuracy as they are due for property parcel boundaries.

The boundary concept is fundamental for Cadastre 2014.

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Figure 1 Process of boundary emergence

1.6 The Boundary Concept as base of Cadastre 2014

The boundary concept is a basic principle for the further development of the cadastre as itwas studied by the FIG Commission 7 between 1994 and 1998 after the FIG MelbourneCongress. The resulting FIG publication Cadastre 2014 A Vision for a Future CadastralSystem, [Kaufmann, Steudler, (1998)] was presented the first time at the XXI. FIG Congress1998 in Brighton. Six fundamental statements form the key message. Figures 1 to 6 explainthese six statements.

The key issue of Cadastre 2014 is the Statement 1 concerning the documentation andregistration of the restrictions of the property rights. Property rights are normally guaranteedby the constitutions, documented by traditional cadastral systems and registered. Thesetraditional systems meanwhile declare only half the truth, because theydo not document therestrictions of the property rights by the steadily increasing arrangements by new laws.

Statement 1 is the implementation of the boundary concept because it suggests to include allexisting legal boundaries into the cadastre and therefore to be able to tell the society thewhole truth.

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Figure 2 Statement 1


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Statement 1 is not yet implemented in many countries. Some studies and improvements oflegislations have taken place in different jurisdictionss. E. g. Switzerland has introduced aCadastre on Public-right Restrictions in the framework of the Law on Geoinformation,

which was put to force by mid 2008. This enlarged cadastre will contain the legal land objectsdefined by the different laws on construction, on traffic infrastructures, on land use planning,

on environment and heritage protection, on protection from disasters, etc.

In a study scanning all laws on the Swiss federal level for creating property right restrictions,either defined virtually on a map or in a digital model, or marked in the terrain found thatmore than 150 types of restrictions exist [Knpfel, Wey (2005)].

The other statements have been adopted by different jurisdictions either fully or in the mostcases partially. So the separation of the graphical and the registration part of cadastresystems (Statement 2) was overcome in the most of the countries starting with a setup or thereform of the cadastre. The aspect of modeling (Statement 3) has become a key issue, as isshown by studies like Cadastral Core Model or Land Administration Domain Model and by

practical implementations of data models in different projects. Even hardliners promoting low-cost cadastral systems have found out, that the application of IT is inevitable to achieveefficiency at reasonable cost (Statement 4). The implementation of a private sector in thefield of cadastre survey is a main topic in cadastre and registration projects of the Worldbankand many national donors (Statement 5). The question of at least partial cost recovery of theinvestments in the cadastre (Statement 6) is implemented in most jurisdictions in order tomake the cadastral organizations more self sustainable.

2 The boundary concept as a chance for surveyors

The principle of the legal independence (see figure 8) stipulated by Cadastre 2014 allows itto model every physical or virtual configuration of boundaries of all types.

Figure 8 Principle of legal independence

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Cadastre 2014, based on the boundary concept states that for all other boundaries the sameprocedure is to be kept as it is proved since a long time for the property boundaries. To makethe information on the boundaries reliable it has to be verified and to be registered in anofficial documentation. This documentation can be the cadastre itself. What has been donesuccessfully for the property boundaries over a long time is to be applied for all the other

legal boundaries arranged by the legislative work, which came up mainly after WW2.

The procedure proposed by Cadastre 2014 is shown in figure 9.

Figure 9 The procedures necessary to make the information on boundaries officially valid.

All types of boundaries can be documented by cadastral systems obeying the principles ofCadastre 2014. And they can and shall be handled by cadastral specialists.

The specialists for boundaries are the surveyors and they are the specialists for landmanagement as well.

In Switzerland, the Association of Geomatics and Landmanagement geosuisse is working ona definition of the professional fields of activities according to figure 10.

The services of land administration and land management are based on a comprehensivedocumentation and registration of the legal situation of land. Land management is finally therearrangement of rights to land and other land objects. It is a fact, that in planning processesmost of the time, namely approximately 75% is consumed by the acquisition and preparationof the basic data. Only 25% is left for the real planning work. With a comprehensivedocumentation of the legal situation, this ratio can be changed to be at least 25:75.

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Figure 10 Field of activities of Swiss surveyors

3 Opportunities created by the boundary concept

The boundary concept is a fundamental tool of land management. Some opportunities areoutlined in the following chapter.

3.1 Land consolidation

Land consolidation is a typical land management task, which will be much more efficient byusing the comprehensive documentation on land rights, restrictions, use and values. Newboundaries, which allow the more efficient land use, are created.

3.2 Land use planning

The experience shows that land use planning cannot be implemented without a stringentrearrangement of the land ownership and use rights. Land use conflicts can be resolved bymethods of the reallocation of land rights with new boundaries taking into consideration theguarantees provided by the constitutions and the respective legal framework.

3.3 Environment Protection

Environment protection measures can better be implemented when land managementmethods are used to compensate disadvantages for the land owners by rearranging theproperty rights by changing the boundaries to optimize land use and protection.

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3.4 Traditional land right management

Often the traditional land right of indigenous tribes are overlapping property rightarrangements introduced by colonial powers. The protection of important sites and traditionalland rights can be enforced by land management methods as compensation and reallocationof rights by rearrangement of the boundaries.

3.5 Territorial conflict resolution

Territorial conflicts are about influence on people and/or resources. Clean compensationprinciples combined with the boundary reallocation methods of land management can help tofind solutions.

3.6 Ethnic conflict resolution

Land management methods can help to resolve ethnic conflicts by rearranging theboundaries of states and districts according to democratic decisions of ethnic entities.

There are a lot more examples, where the boundary management can be helpful.

4 Conclusion

Comprehensive documentations of the really existing legal situation of land based on theboundary concept as proposed by Cadastre 2014 will form a mighty basis for landmanagement in different areas. It will be a task of the surveyors to develop and implementland management activities to help to resolve the social and environmental problems of thehuman community.

References

Kaufmann, Jrg, Steudler, Daniel. (1998). Cadastre 2014 A Vision for a Future CadastralSystem. Rdlingen and Bern, Switzerland, July, 1998

Prof. Dr. Knpfel Peter, Wey Benjamin (2005). SIDIS: ffentlich-rechtlicheEigentumsbeschrnkungen (REB): Gesetzliche Bestimmungen des Bundesrechts, dieREB begrnden. Zwischenbericht (3.2MB)

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