The context for the following research survey

The 1970s saw an emerging interest for 3rd world countries and their development, including development of land management. - The UN's Environmental Conference in Stockholm, 1972, may serve as an example. The note Development Agencies provides an initial survey of the organisations involved.

During the 1980s the international scope focused more on Europe, especially in terms of the European Union. After the collapse of socialist economies, the concern for 'countries in transition' motivated funding for research and development projects through the PHARE programme. In 1988 the surveying profession of EU countries were represented at the EU Commission through the CLGE, 'Comité de Liaison des Géomètre-Experts Européens'.

Heads of the mapping agencies in Europe have organized CERCO. As several mapping agencies are not concerned with land management issues, the agencies with cadastral and further land administration activities have organized themselves within Meeting of Officials on Land Administration (MOLA). MOLA is set up under the auspices of the Committee on Human Settlements within UN-ECE. Examples of MOLA activities includes a Statement on Land Administration and PROCEEDINGS OF THE UN/ECE WORKSHOP ON LAND MARKET: A CHALLENGE TO LAND ADMINISTRATION (Budapest, November 1998). Recently, a Working Party on Land Administration has been set up, also within UN-ECE, which "aims at promoting land administration through security of tenure, establishment of real estate markets in countries in transition and modernization of land registration systems in the market economies".

Research and development

International comparisons in the field of land management are difficult, due to the diverse administrative systems and diverse norms and institutions of the different countries. From the 1980s research and development became more intensive, as appears from the following list of indicative titles:

• FAO: Cadastral surveys and records of rights in land. FAO Land Tenure Studies no. 1. 1953. Revised edition 1995. (Head of cadastral agency on Borneo communicates his experiences to an international forum)
• U.N. (1973) Report of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Cadastral Surveying and Mapping. New York.
• Dale, P F (1976) Cadastral surveys within the Commonwealth. Overseas Research Publication no. 23. HMSO, London. (A textbook, describing systems in Commonwealth countries)
• National Research Council, USA (1980): Need for a multi-purpose cadastre. National Academy Press, Washington D. C. (A quest for cadastral development and research in the USA).
• U.N. (1985) Report of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Cadastral Surveying and Land Information Systems. New York.
• Dale, P F & McLaughlin, J D (1988) Land information management - an introduction with special reference to cadastral problems in Third World countries. Oxford. Clarendon. (A textbook for managers of cadastral and land registry services)
• Holstein, Lyn (1990) Land information management in support of urban development in developing countries. Washington D. C. The World Bank. (Relates land administration with urban planning and infrastructure provision)
• UNCHS (Habitat) (1990) Guidelines for the improvement of land registration and land information systems in developing countries. Nairobi.
• Larsson, G (1991) Land registration and cadastral systems. Tools for land information management. Longmans. (Content comparable to Dale & McLoughlin, 1988; deeper description of existing land administration systems)
• de Soto, Hernando (1993) The missing ingredient: What poor countries will need to make their markets work The Economist London; Sept. 11, 8-11.
• FIG: Statement on the cadastre. FIG publication no 1995. (Broad statements, which could be agreed upon)
• Seminar: Modern Cadastres and Cadastral Innovation, Delft, May 1995
• Henssen: Basic principles of the main cadastral systems in the world, 1995 (Presented at the Delft Seminar. One of the first suggestions for a general classification of land administration systems).
• THE BOGOR DECLARATION, United Nations Interregional Meeting of Experts on the Cadastre, Bogor, Indonesia, March 1996
• UN Economic Commission for Europe: Land administration guidelines - with special references to countries in transition. E.96.II.E.7. Geneva, 1996. 95 p.(Normative)
• Larsson, G (1997) Land management - Public policy, control and participation. Byggforskningsrådet. 232 p.
• Steudler, Williamson, Kaufmann & Grant: Benchmarking cadastral systems, Australian Surveyor, 1997 (World-wide comparison of key figures regarding activities of land administrations)
• Zevenbergen, Jaap (1998) Is title registration really the panacea for defective land administration in developing countries. Proceedings of the International Conference on Land Tenure in the Developing World with a focus on Southern Africa, University of Cape Town, 1998, p. 570-580
• Zevenbergen, Jaap (1998)The interrelated influence of the technical, legal and organisational aspects on the functioning of land registrations (cadastres). Proceedings, FIG Commission 7, Brighton, 1998
• International Workshop on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, 17th to 23rd October, 1999.
• International Conference on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development, Melbourne, State of Victoria, Australia, 24th to 27th October, 1999. Bathurst declaration
• FIG PUBLICATION NO. 21 The Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development, 1999
• Nordic Academic Views on Real Estate and Cadastre. Special issue of Kart og Plan. 59/3; includes Stubkjær, Erik (1999) Cadastral Research - Issues and Approaches. Kart og Plan 59/3 pp 267 - 278.

My own research

A selective list of references is the following:

Stubkjær, Erik, 1990 Communication Theory - A basis for data exchange and for measures of the quality of data. Proceedings, Third Scandinavian Research Conference on Geographical Information Systems, November 14-16, 1990 Helsingør, Denmark. Hermansen B, Balstrøm T & Frederiksen P (Eds) Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelser, Miljøministeriet. ISBN 87-88640-66-3. Vol 2, 213-229.
Stubkjær, Erik, 1991 Danish land information systems: The institutional and technical context. Tutorial, 14th Urban Data Management Symposium, UDMS '91 in Odense, Denmark, 29-31 May 1991. Kommunedata, Odense, 1991. 12p.
Stubkjær, Erik, 1992a The Implementation of Policies related to Agriculture and Environment - an essay. in: Kocher, Gernot & Georgios M Schinas (Eds) Bodenordnung in einem neuen Europa. Forschungen der Europäischen Fakultät für Bodenordnung, Strassbourg, Bd 14. Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main. Pp 271-286.
Stubkjær, Erik, 1992b The development of national, multi-purpose spatial information systems - Danish experiences in a theoretical context Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 16 (3) (May/June) p 209 - 217.
Stubkjær, Erik, 1994 A Theoretical Basis for Cadastral Development. Proceedings, Third Seminar of the European Co-operation Network for Education and Research in Land Information Systems (EUROLIS) September 1994, Delft. Faculty of Geodetic Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft.p. 0.9-0.23.
Stubkjær, Erik, 1994 Employing the linguistic paradigm for spatial information. in: Proceedings, Spatial Data Handling Symposium, September 5-9 1994, Edinburgh. Vol 1, pp 572-587.
Stubkjær, Erik, 2001 Spatial, Socio-economic Units and Societal Needs - Danish Experiences in a Theoretical Context. In:
Frank, A U; Raper, J; Cheylan, JP (Eds): Life and Motion of Socio-Economic Units. GISDATA Series, no. 8. London, Taylor &
Francis.Pp 265-279.

A rather complete list is available.

The research, which I draw upon is wider then the list of the previous section, and includes:

Campbell, Heather (1991) Organizational issues in managing geographic information. in: Masser, Ian & Blakemore, Michael (Eds): Handling geographical information - Methodology and potential applictions. Longman, Harlow, UK. Pp 259 - 282
Davis, Ernest (1990) Representations of commonsense knowledge. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, USA. 515 p.
Eason, Ken D. (1988) Information Technology and Organisational Change. Taylor and Francis, London.
Fiske, John (1986) Introduction to communication studies. Methuen, London. 174 p.
Freeman-Bell, Gail and James Blakwill (1993) Management in Engineering - Principles and practice. Prentice Hall International, Hempstead (UK).
Guptil, Stephen C & Joel L Morrison (1995) Elements of spatial data quality. Elsevier Science. Printed on behalf of the Int. Cartographic Association. 202 p.
Head, C. Grant (1991) Mapping as a language or semiotic system: Review and comment. in: Mark, David M. and Andrew U. Frank: Cognitive and linguistic aspects of geographic space. NATO ASI series D, vol 63. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (NL).
Klein, Lisl & Ken Eason (1991) Putting social science to work. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Laurini, Robert & Thompson, Derek (1992) Fundamentals of spatial information systems. The A.P.I.C. series no 37. Academic Press, London. 680 p.
Leavitt, Harold J (1965) Applied organizational change in industry - Structural, technological and humanistic approaches. Pp. 1144 - 1170 in: James G March (Ed) Handbook of organizations. Rand McNally, Chicago.
Marin, Bernd & Mayntz, Renate (Eds) (1991) Policy networks - Empirical evidence and theoretical considerations. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt aM.
Mintzberg, Henry (1979) The structuring of organizations. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Pornon, Henri (1996) How GIS are introduced in organizations. Vol 2, p 836-840. Proceedings, JECE on Geographical Information, Barcelona. IOS press, Amsterdam. ISBN 90 5199 2688.
Schneider, Volker (1988) Politiknetzwerke der Chemikalienkontrolle - Eine Analyse einer transnationalen Politikentwicklung. European University Institute, series C, vol 10. deGruyter, Berlin.
Skok, James E (1995) Policy issue networks and the public policy cycle - A structural-functional framework for public administration Public Administration Review 55 (4) (July/August) pp. 325 - 332.
Stevens, S. S. (1946) On the theory of scales of measurement Science Vol 103, No 2684 (June 7) p. 677 - 680
Whisler, Thomas L. (1970) Information Technology and Organizational Change. Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
Wierda, Folkert W (1991) Developing interorganizational information systems. PhD Thesis. F W Wiera. PO box 356, 2600 AJ Delft, The Netherlands.
Weber, Max (1947) The theory of social and economic organization. Free Press, New York. 436 p.
Ziman, John (1984/1992) An introduction to science studies - The philosophical and social aspects of science and technology. Cambridge University Press, New York. 203 p.

Further sources (most as of 1999)

A documentation centre is established in the Netherlands: International Office of Cadastre and Land Records (OICRF). A Report on recent activities is available.

FIG has issued a Dictionary of technical terms (Fachwörterbuch). Lists of terms may be found in several reports, including Glossary of Dr Allen's: "The Education and Practice of the Geodetic Surveyor in Western Europe". In the CLGE report: The Establishment of the profile and definition of the geodetic surveying profession in Europe you find definitions of a land surveyor, profile of disciplines, definition of the concept of profession, etc.

The rapid development of information technology has attracted many research resources. This implies that Land Management issues may be treated at more application oriented GIS conferences like

• (Joint) European Conference and Exhibition on GIS, EGIS/JEGIS (1996, 1997, 1998)
• Urban Data Management Symposium, UDMS
• AM/FM - GIS Nordic Region, presently presented by ULI

The present change of public administration towards more market oriented approaches is described within the European research activity COST A14 Government and Democracy in the Information Age.

Real Property Rights are addressed directly through another COST action: Modelling Real Property Transactions