OGC requests comment for Land Administration Domain Working Group

Worldwide, effective and efficient land administration is an ongoing concern. Only 40 countries around the world have mature land information systems. Of the remaining nations, only 10% have some land administration capability in place – others are non-existent, or are manual paper-based systems subject to limited public access and a significant risk of data loss due to disasters. Challenges exist to guide developing nations in a programmatic way to establish cost effective interoperable land administration capability, to upgrade current manual processes, and to field solutions that are automated and are flexible to new data sources and new technologies.

Key is the ability of land administration frameworks to support the regulatory and policy environments that are often unique to individual jurisdictions and nations.

This new OGC DWG will focus on the examination of existing systems of land administration, preparation of best practices that enable nations to address their needs in less time, cost and effort through standards-based implementations, and dialog on the integration of emerging information resources and/or technologies to assist nations in leapfrogging capability. Additionally, this DWG will identify and mature proposals for industry interoperability assessments, interoperability testbeds, pilots and experiments designed to bring together users and technology providers to test, demonstrate and validate best practices that can be used to guide the acquisition and implementation of sustainable, scalable and interoperable systems.

The Land Administration DWG is being coordinated with related activities in other standards development organizations, such as ISO, W3C, OASIS and IHO, to better address interoperability issues that span the geospatial and broader IT environment.