Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications

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    Re-engineering land administration systems for sustainable development: from rhetoric to reality
    Williamson, Ian P. ( 2001)
    Current land administration systems are the product of 19th century economic and land market paradigms and have failed to properly support sustainable development. The need for urgent reform is accepted, but the way forward unclear in many jurisdictions. This paper will discuss current international initiatives and research to develop a new land administration vision to promote sustainable development. Within this context, this paper describes the changing humankind to land relationship, identifies some of the growing environmental pressures facing modern society and the need for sustainable development, explores the evolving role of land administration in society and highlights the need for land administration systems to play a more proactive role in supporting sustainable development objectives. The process to re-engineer land administrations is briefly reviewed. The paper then highlights the development of a national land administration vision and strategy. In proposing strategies the paper draws on international trends and experiences such as highlighted in the recent United Nations - International Federation of Surveyors Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development.
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    The role of land administration in the accession of Central European countries to the European Union
    Bogaerts, T ; Williamson, IP ; Fendel, EM (ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2002-01)
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    The United Nations - International Federation of SurveyorsDeclaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development
    Williamson, I. P. ; Grant, D. ( 2000)
    The changing humankind-land relationship and current global and local drivers suchas sustainable development, urbanization, globalization, economic reform and theinformation revolution, demand land administration responses. Of the global drivers,sustainable development may be identified as having overall significance because ofits dynamic economic-political, social, and environmental dimensions. At the heart ofthe challenging opportunity-cost decisions for sustainable development is the pressingneed for land administration systems to evolve speedily and appropriately to supportthe sustainable development imperative.Current land administration systems are the product of 19th century paradigms of landmarkets, which have a narrow cadastral (land parcel) focus. As a result they havefailed to properly support these global and local drivers. The evidence of the failureincludes issues of poverty, access to land, security of tenure, development rights andenvironmental degradation.World opinion on aspects of sustainable development, as represented by UnitedNations (UN) global summits and declarations (for example UN Earth Summit, Riode Janeiro, 1994; UN City Summit, Istanbul, 1998; UN Food Summit, Rome, 1998),have highlighted the importance of land administration to support sustainabledevelopment, but have provided few practical implementation strategies. This ad hocapproach has resulted in rhetoric, rather than reality, in developing land administrationsystems to accommodate sustainable development objectives. Governments, on theother hand, have generally been willing, if not anxious, to reform land administrationfor sustainable objectives, but there are no clear directions or models to adopt.As a preliminary step towards overcoming the uncertain relationship between landadministration and sustainable development, a joint United Nations-InternationalFederation of Surveyors Workshop on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures forSustainable Development was organised in B
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    United Nations-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administrationfor Sustainable Development: Development and Impact
    Williamson, I. P. ; Grant, D. M. ( 2002)
    The joint United Nations-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration forSustainable Development was prepared at an International Workshop on CadastralInfrastructures for Sustainable Development organized jointly by the FIG and theUnited Nations in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, on 18-22 October 1999.The Declaration was presented formally together with position papers prepared asbackground for the Workshop at an International Conference in Melbourne, Australia,on 25-27 October 1999. The Workshop and Conference, together with the resultingDeclaration, were part of the Work Plan of Commission 7 (Cadastre and LandManagement) and were three years in the planning.The paper will review the activities leading up to the Workshop, Conference anddevelopment of the Declaration, and will discuss the impact of the Declaration.Following on from the Workshop and Conference, presentations were made at variousUnited Nations conferences as well as the FIG General Assembly. In addition therehave been numerous workshops and conference spawned by the Declaration. Thepaper will also look to the future to consider how the Bathurst Declaration can be builtupon to the benefit of all countries as well as professional surveyors. Importantly thepaper will discuss the impact of the overriding outcome from this initiative in that ithas stated a clear relationship between land administration and sustainabledevelopment.