Urban land administration and planning in China: Opportunities and constraints of spatial data models

China's economic reforms over the past decades have given rise to the development of a rudimentary urban land market. Although one cannot speak of a land “market” in the strict sense of the word, there is an urban land allocation system in which land lease rights can be acquired through the payment of a land-use fee. If the urban land market is to develop in a sustainable manner, new credible institutions need to be established that can safeguard greater legal security and transparency. For these purposes, it is necessary to establish a management system that can support the legal (tenure security), economic (leases, taxes) and broader aspects (spatial and environmental land use policies) of land administration. To make an urban land administration system socially credible and functional, land-related information should be registered and structured at a detailed spatial level, such as parcels. There is no parcel-based information system in China, but the country has developed a population registration system at a detailed spatial level that could be a starting point to develop integrated information systems, or a so-called “local spatial data infrastructure”. This paper reviews China's population registration system and their spatial units and presents a proposal for an information system that can be expanded or adapted to meet the requirements of an effective land administration system.     

Credibility of institutions: Forestry, social conflict and titling in China

In the reform of a forestry sector governed by centralist, socialist principles towards a sector suited to the challenges of the market economy, the Chinese government needs to establish institutions that can be perceived as credible by social actors. In other words, the creation of institutions that rally sufficient social and political support in order to be effective. Against this backdrop, this article consciously opts to refer to institutional “credibility” instead of the more fashionable concept of institutional “trust”. Whereas scholarly discussions about trust focus more on the relation of trust between social actors, credibility puts more emphasis on the institution itself, and the role of government in its successful creation or failure. Failure to effectively undertake institutional reform might put the social acceptability or credibility of institutions at risk, and can lead to the emergence of “empty institutions” with little, or even, a negative effect on social and political actors. Applying this concept to China's forestry sector, this article identifies three critical areas that call for careful rethinking how to “get institutions right”: the titling of forest holdings; the restructuring of the forest administration; and the design of forest laws and policies with particular reference to lease and ownership.     

Urban spill over vs. local urban sprawl: Entangling land-use regulations in the urban growth of China's megacities

Rather than a bad case of urban sprawl, the physical expansion of China's megacities may be viewed as a combination of ‘urban spill over’ and ‘local urban sprawl’. This paper reviews land use regulations in their institutional context and argues that conflicts in land use regulation are related to ideologies of land ownership and embedded in different planning doctrines. These hypotheses are investigated with special reference to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China. The evidence suggests that entangled land use regulations for “urban” and “rural” land have imposed serious constraints on urban growth, while the contradictions of different policies and regulations in the use of rural lands for urban construction have led to intensive and unhealthy competition among stakeholders. As a result, not only have the costs of land conversion from rural to urban uses increased, but the spatial development of Guangzhou has been distorted. The implications of these failures for future policy are discussed with emphasis on the reform of the land use regulation system.     

Assessing the growth-inducing impact of the Appalachian Development Highway System in southern Ohio: Did policy promote change?

The concept of “inducing growth” is typically considered an adverse consequence of a project on the land use system. In certain instances, however, the desire to induce growth and foster land use change is a focus of land use policy. Such is the example of the Appalachian Highway Development System (AHDS) program initiated by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) during the late 1960s. With the goal of providing highway infrastructure to improve assess to a geographically isolated and historically impoverished region, the ADHS has added nearly 3000 miles of highway to the Appalachian landscape. The degree to which highway investment has contributed to regional growth remains a controversial point and tractable methods to quickly assess landscape change given a project of this magnitude are elusive. In this paper a portion of the AHDS trending through southern Ohio is examined using data acquired from the Landsat series of satellites. Beginning with a pre-highway condition in 1976, a 26 year time horizon, concluding in 2002, was analyzed based on a post-classification change detection methodology. Results of this investigation revealed slight, yet significant, levels of urban expansion within a 10 km corridor along the path of AHDS Corridor D/State Route 32. Beyond this buffer zone the land use system evidenced more stability, suggesting that as distance increased from Corridor D/State Route 32, reduced accessibility also reduced the attractiveness of land for urban uses. Relating these results back to the infrastructure investment policies of the ARC demonstrates that growth did result from the construction of Corridor D and supports previous findings that land development based on highway construction is extremely time-sensitive.     

Evaluation of land administration systems

Currently there are no internationally accepted methodologies to evaluate and compare the performance of land administration systems. This is partly because land administration systems are in constant reform, and probably more importantly, they represent societies’ different perceptions of land. This paper describes the development of a framework to measure and compare the performance of land administration systems. The research is of particular relevance since it develops a management model which links the operational aspects of land administration with land policy.     

Land administration for housing production: An approach for assessment

The integration of land administration processes and the collaboration of land agencies are considered essential for the effective delivery of developable land for housing production. The research upon which this paper is based investigates the interrelationship across land administration functions and between different levels of government in the management and delivery of land for housing production. It focuses on land management policies, land administration processes, and spatial data infrastructure, as they are related to housing production. The study starts from the premise that inadequate integration across land administration functions and between different levels of government impedes land delivery for housing production. Against this background, an assessment framework is proposed as a tool to assess the levels of integration. The parameters for the development of the framework are based on the extensive literature of past and present initiatives which focused on enhancing inter-agency collaboration. It is also supported by interviews with land agencies in the case study areas – Australia and Nigeria – to aggregate the common themes as observed in the literature. The assessment framework was evaluated through selected government departments and agencies. With this approach, the assessment framework develops into the land administration integration assessment matrix. The key consideration of the matrix is to assess the depth of inter-agency relationship ranging from information sharing to consultation, coordination of activities, joint management, partnership arrangement and formal merger of organisations.     

Generic land registry and cadastre data model supporting interoperability based on international standards for Turkey

Managing land information effectively is a key factor in achieving successful land administration and sustainable land development. To manage land, each government has a land policy and administration system. A land administration system (LAS) enables identification, registration and sharing of information about land in compliance with land policies by using information technologies effectively. In this context, land information systems (LISs) are designed to fulfill the requirements related to land, to provide tenure assurance and to manage natural resources sustainably. In Turkey, the necessity of information technologies and geographic information systems (GIS) was recognised by public institutions in the early 1990s. The Land Registry and Cadastre Information System Project (TAKBIS in Turkish) started to manage land registry and cadastre data and processes throughout Turkey. By using a standard framework, the project aimed to digitise land registry and cadastre data and to perform all activities and queries in a digital environment. However, the project did not reach the expected level of success because the data infrastructure was not standardised and did not meet the data requirements of other stakeholders at the national and international level.On the other hand, studies of a new e-government project called Turkish National GIS (TUCBS in Turkish) was initiated to establish a national geographic data infrastructure (GDI) which allows efficient management of geographic data and corresponds to national-level user requirements and Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) specifications. In this study, to provide data interoperability among different institutions and meet stakeholder needs, the data model of the Land Registry and Cadastre Data Theme is examined and improved. Within the design process, the ISO 19152 Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) and INSPIRE Cadastral Parcels are examined and applied as the baseline international standards. In addition, main land and land group parcel types in the Turkish cadastral system, the main rights, restrictions and responsibilities related to land in the Turkish registration system, mortgages established over rights, cadastral maps, standard subdivision of two-dimensional (2D) space with special names, surveyed point and monumentation types were explained briefly within the revised land registry and cadastre data model. As a case study, data sets from different sources were transformed to open data sets compatible with the model. This model enables data interoperability in land-related applications. However, models should be kept as simple as possible for effective data transformation and management.     

The evolving concepts of land administration in China: Cultivated land protection perspective

This paper presents a holistic method by integrating three concepts (land resources management, assets supervision and political governance for sustainability) for investigation of land administration in China, taking into consideration of cultivated land protection for a testimony with econometric method. Theoretically, in this self-organizing integrated method, land resources management focuses on the productivity of land; land assets supervision centralizes on the realization of land usufruct rights in land transference; land political governance for sustainability concentrates on harmonious linkage of economic efficiency, social stability and environmental safety of land use. Their interrelations are complex. Methodologically, the results indicate that the theoretical model is feasible to explain variations of cultivated land protection with these three concepts. Cultivated land decreases with increasing land value increment multiples, and is positive with political governance concept, but not in a linear fashion. Finally the results suggest that roles of government in land administration need to be changed and strengthened, supporting complete compensation for land expropriation and modification to policies of cultivated land.     

3D Cadastres in India: Examining the status and potential for land administration and management in Delhi

Urbanization and the trend towards complex infrastructure development challenges the traditional two-dimensional (2D) cadastral representations used in conventional land administration. Three-dimensional (3D) representations are argued to serve as the future basis upon which to spatially define rights, restrictions and responsibilities (RRRs) in these environments. In Delhi, the capital city of India, where horizontal expansion via new settlements in peri-urban areas, and vertical expansion by densification of city infrastructure, are both prevalent, the need to manage this increasingly complex 3D infrastructure environment presents a great challenge for land administration and management agencies. This paper explores both the current and potential future application of 3D representation in Delhi, with respect to land use planning, development and management. A cross-cutting thematic case study analysis is undertaken: policy drivers, legal frameworks, organizational aspects, and technical standards are considered. For each aspect a separate analytical approach is used. Based on the results, it is concluded that current practices related to 3D representation are somewhat immature and not adequate for capturing the future vertical growth of Delhi. This could lead to legal and physical boundary inconsistencies and irregularities, and dispute cases. However, by learning from international developments and standards-based approaches, agencies have the potential to enhance and support processes in their respective land administration systems. To realize this potential, internal and external policies, institutional settings and, technical and financial arrangements need to be reformed. In the short term it is recommended to focus on raising awareness for the widespread adoption of 3D representations in relevant agencies in Delhi.     

On the need for national land administration infrastructures

Many nations lack a coherent national approach to land administration. Instead, land information and processes are frequently disaggregated across states, provinces, cantons, counties, or municipalities. This is particularly the case in federated countries. The growing body of land administration theory often assumes or prescribes the need for national systems; however, the justification for this approach requires further explanation. Without justification, nations that maintain disaggregated systems lack the impetus to unlock the opportunities veiled within their disparate land administration systems. Moreover, a nation's ability to respond effectively to emerging national and global-scale issues such as climate-change is greatly impeded. This paper aims to explain the need for national land administration infrastructures. Qualitative case studies of the Australian context and the method of triangulation inform the justification. The research reveals most drivers can be classified into six overarching subsets: adherence to international standards by national governments, better federal or central governance, improved shared governance, scale of economies for lower levels of government, opportunities and savings for business, and social inclusion for citizens. Unfortunately, specific drivers are found to be complex and changeable, as political, scientific and environmental debates raise policy issues: there is no single solution. As an alternative, nations must seize on the specific drivers relevant to their context. They must employ them to transform disparate land administration systems into multi-purpose national land administration infrastructures that deliver benefits to all stakeholder groups.     

Towards sustainable rural development in Central and Eastern Europe: Applying land consolidation

Over the past twenty years, social and economic decline in rural areas has intensified in the Central and Eastern European countries. A precondition for the reversal of this decline is the implementation of new policies in relation to the fundamentals of land ownership and management. In addition to addressing the problems of land ownership fragmentation, these should include measures to improve agricultural production and employment, taxation policy, and legislation to protect land ownership rights, within the context of acknowledging environmental and sustainability considerations. In Europe, the requirement for readjusting unfavourable land fragmentation and promoting the appropriate use of land combining with positive environmental solutions is expected to create new sustainable land management systems. The consolidation of land ownerships may be an effective and active land management instrument which not only addresses the problems of land fragmentation, but also, if applied sensitively, may be an instrument for delivering sustainable rural development in a wider context. The aim of this research is to investigate land consolidation as an essential tool to create sustainable rural areas in Lithuania.     

Detecting the impact of the “Grain for Green” program on the mean annual vegetation cover in the Shaanxi province, China using SPOT-VGT NDVI data

In order to reduce the soil erosion rate on the Chinese Loess Plateau, the Chinese government launched in 1999 the “Grain for Green” program (GfG). The objective of this program was to increase the forest cover on steep slopes in the landscape by planting trees and sowing grasses on former cropland. The program was a massive investment by the Chinese government. By the end of 2005 the GfG-program was implemented in an area of 87,000 km² in which about 400–600 million trees were planted. At present it is not known to what extent this program was successful. This paper examines the effects of the GfG-program on the mean annual vegetation cover in the Shaanxi province. A decadal time series of SPOT VEGETATION imagery from 1998 till 2005 were used to calculate NDVI-values in four counties with different rainfall regimes. By means of a regression between preceding rainfall and NDVI-values the effects of rainfall variability were filtered out. A trend analysis of the corrected NDVI time series pointed out that the GfG-program resulted in a significant increase of the vegetation cover on farmland in the northern part of Shaanxi province. In the southern part of the province, which has a more humid climate and large areas of irrigation farmland no significant increase of the vegetation cover on farmland could be detected.     

Whose land? The political economy of land titling in transitional economies

During processes of economic reform and transition, decision-makers are facing questions with potential far-reaching consequences, such as what institutions should be established, how to determine the relationship between state and market, and in what time frame and order. Against this background, this special issue has brought together four articles that analyze the type of institutional arrangements that emerge over time in relation to one of the basic means of production: land. The various contributions pay particular attention to an often-contested institutional development, the registration of land holdings. By proceeding with land titling under conditions of low socio-economic development, the state risks creating what is here termed as an “empty institution” rather than a “credible institution.” In other words, the new institution remains nothing more than a paper agreement or a hollow shell with little or even a negative effect on the actions of social actors. It is what might be called the “collective trust” in the system. As land becomes increasingly marketized and commodified, the state should ensure that the emerging land market does not result in a rapid concentration of land in the hands of a mighty few. This implies the control of market forces through the restriction or prohibition of land sales or land rental. In this context, effecting institutional change through land titling should be done with the utmost care.     

Accounting for farmers’ production responses to environmental restrictions within landscape planning

Environmental planning aims to safeguard and foster the ecological functionality of agricultural landscapes. In order to reach a sustainable development of agricultural landscapes, in addition to ecological objectives socio-economic ones also need to be considered. In this context, the authors draw attention to three points. First, whenever ecologically sensitive areas (“ecological sites”) are used for agricultural production, it is necessary to take account of the fact that farmers tend to adapt to environmental requirements by production responses outside the ecological site itself. Second, in order to identify the socially most “desirable” land-use responses it is necessary to supplement the above-mentioned environmental objectives by socio-economic ones. Third, when choosing an appropriate model for such multi-criteria decision analysis, the question of substitutability between criteria is of utmost importance. The paper discusses the above-mentioned issues against the background of a case study of environmental planning for an ecologically very valuable agricultural landscape in Germany, the Bayerisches Donauried. Two models of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are applied, one based on the “single synthesizing criterion” method, and the other one based on the “synthesis by outranking” method. The models serve to evaluate four different land-use options, using criteria mainly derived from landscape functions and weights gained from interviews with major stakeholders. The paper presents the models’ results concerning the ranking of the different land-use options and discusses the implications for agri-environmental policies and rural development planning.     

Extra-legal land market dynamics on a Guatemalan agricultural frontier: Implications for neoliberal land policies

Neoliberal land policies such as land administration seek to improve property rights and the efficiency of land markets to boost rural economic production. Quantitative studies of pre-existing land markets can help planners to tailor these policies to local conditions. In this article we examine an extra-legal land market currently being modernized by a World Bank-sponsored land administration effort. Specifically, we use a hedonic-type revealed preference model and household survey data to estimate the factors affecting extra-legal land prices along an agricultural frontier in Petén, Guatemala. Our model indicates that land value is significantly affected by land attributes including location, tenure status, presence of water, distance to roads, and distance to landowners’ homes, and that land prices in the northwestern Petén are estimated to have risen on average 26.5% per year between 1977 and 2000. We contend that this rate of increase provides a strong incentive for colonists to speculate in land rather than invest in state sanctioned property rights. We conclude that if frontier development programs, such as land administration, are to become attractive to settlers in Petén and elsewhere, they must compete favorably with economic incentives associated with land speculation, or alternatively, target landowners who are not interested in playing the land market.     

Persistence of cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon: A spatial analysis of the rationale for beef production

Fed by demand for beef within Brazil and in global markets, the Brazilian herd grew from 147 million head of cattle in 1990 to ≈200 million in 2007. Eighty-three percent of this expansion occurred in the Amazon and this trend is expected to continue as the industry bounces back from a recent agricultural downturn. Intensification of the cattle industry has been suggested as one way to reduce pressure on forest margins and spare land for soybean or sugarcane production, and is the cornerstone of Brazil's plan for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, federal credit programs and research and development activities in Brazil are aligning to support intensification goals, but there is no guarantee that this push for intensification will decrease the demand for land at the forest margin and as result curb CO₂ emissions from deforestation. In this paper we use a spatially explicit rent model which incorporates the local effects of biophysical characteristics, infrastructure, land prices, and distance to markets and slaughterhouses to calculate 30-year Net Present Values (NPVs) of extensive cattle ranching across the Brazilian Amazon. We use the model to ask where extensive ranching is profitable and how land acquisition affects profitability. We estimate that between 17% and 80% of land in the Amazon would have moderate to high NPVs when ranched extensively if it were settled, i.e. if the rancher does not buy the land but acquires it through land grabbing. In addition, we estimate that between 9% and 13% of land in the Amazon is vulnerable to speculation (i.e. areas with positive NPVs only if land is settled and not purchased), which suggests that land speculation is an important driver of extensive ranching profitability, and may continue to be in the future. These results suggest that pro-intensification policies such as credit provision for improved pasture management and investment in more intensive production systems must be accompanied by implementation and enforcement of policies that alter the incentives to clear forest for pasture, discourage land speculation, and increase accountability for land management practices if intensification of the cattle sector is to deter new deforestation and displace production from low-yield, extensive cattle production systems in frontier regions of the Brazilian Amazon.     

More Than Socially Embedded: The Distinctive Character of 'Communal Tenure' Regimes in South Africa and its Implications for Land Policy

This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which informed the adaptation and modification of tenure regimes in the colonial era and under policies of segregation and apartheid, and continue to do so today. Exploring the policy implications of this analysis, the article suggests that alternative approaches to that embodied in the Communal Land Rights Act are required. The most appropriate approach is to make socially legitimate occupation and use rights, as they are currently held and practised, the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional frameworks for administering land.     

Incoherence of urban planning policy in Bucharest: Its potential for land use conflict

Bucharest is a city in transition from its communist past to a market economy, but poor urban planning in is impacting adversely on contested spaces. Lack of effective and strictly enforced regulation and public sector indecision, mixed with problems inherited from the Ceausescu regime, generate many examples of poor urban planning and management. One such example concerns the uncertain future of Văcăreşti “Lake”, our in-depth case study, which is an encapsulated 184 ha wetland whose management has been particularly poor. Employing a mixed methodology of mapping the evolution of the area in question and conducting interviews with surrounding residents and experts in the urban planning or public administration, we demonstrate how lack of an effective planning system and appropriate policies serves to exacerbate conflict between interested parties. Initially there was a conflict between former land owners and authorities, after which developers, surrounding populations, urban planners and ecologists were added. Worse still, the juridical owners of the site are unresolved! Many government agencies and the Bucharest municipality have also compounded the problem by failing to take a lead in future planning and conflict resolution by adopting a passive management approach, which is a recipe for inaction in a poorly regulated land market. Thus, incoherent land use policy has greatly amplified individual and professional conflict both at the local level and city-wide.