A standards-based portal for integrated Land Administration information

Abstract

Land administration is the organized and systematic process of establishing and maintaining information about land. The efficient practice of land administration is anticipated to organize land registers for the provision of cross-sector and cross-border land administration services. Such a system should provide fundamental information regarding land administration without requiring access to land registers or geoportals. Due to disaggregated land administration systems in the Netherlands, land administration information related to the Dutch territory must be accessed through various geoportals. These geoportals include PDOK, Ruimtelijkeplan nen, Wozwaardeloket, Bagviewer, and Kaartenvannederland. These geoportals utilize different approaches to information delivery, processing and retrieval. The basic assumption for the functionality of land administration is the interoperability of data from different registers and geoportals containing land administration information. Therefore, there appears to be a need for an integrated land administration information system. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) as a conceptual model is a way to integrate land administration information into the organized environment of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for efficient data organization and accessibility. The second edition of LADM consists of five parts about the generic conceptual model, land registration, marine georegulation, valuation information and spatial plan information. This study examines the benefits and drawbacks of the implementation of the LADM Edition II for data dissemination in the Netherlands with a linked data portal.

An analysis has been conducted on the current state of LADM Edition II. Two use cases were identified and modelled to assess the implementation of LADM. Country profiles of the Netherlands were developed to adapt the model to country-specific needs. Linked data, a technique based on standardized web technologies, can enhance the capabilities of an SDI. To enable the implementation of the model with linked data, the country profiles were converted into an OWL ontology model, and datasets based on the Dutch registers were created in accordance with the ontology. Finally, a data story was developed using SPARQL queries to query and present the data for the use cases. A data story is a narrative that makes data comprehensible to a wider audience.

The assessment shows that the implementation of LADM Edition II for data dissemination in the Netherlands with a linked data portal has the potential to offer benefits in terms of time efficiency, resource efficiency and usability. This is the result of linking multiple registers from different domains of land administration, which enables the consultation of a single geoportal, the data story. However, this requires significant investment. The country profile has to be validated, datasets have to be created according to the ontology by matching the attributes in the Dutch registers with the attributes in LADM, and SPARQL queries have to be written to retrieve the data. These last two steps require a thorough understanding of the Dutch land administration systems and the ontology, and can be a time-consuming task. It remains to be seen whether the benefits of LADM in the Dutch context are worth the investment required for implementation.