News in 2015

Joint Workshop FIG Commission 7 and 3
- Crowdsourcing of Land Information -
& Annual Meeting

16 and 20 November, ST Julians, Malta

The workshop will have two major themes representing the interests of FIG Commissions 3 and 7:

Commission 3: "The Role of Citizens and Experts in Sensing Geographical Information"
Commission 7: "Crowdsourcing of Land Information"

Workshop Objectives

Citizens, through crowdsourcing / Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), are increasingly volunteering their knowledge, personal time and energy using the Internet and on-line tools to get work done, to obtain input and to stimulate action. Current applications include counting birds, checking water quality and creating new base mapping for developing countries – OpenStreetMap is the best example. Crowdsourcing has only recently been directly applied to the capture and management of land rights within the land administration sector.

Is it feasible and can it help to rapidly shrink the security of tenure chasm? This workshop will explore how we can engage citizens through crowdsourcing within a new citizen collaborative model for land administration that would be much more inclusive for the disadvantaged and vulnerable, increase access to land markets and help support poverty reduction.

The workshop will also investigate new exploitation, development and use methodologies of VGI derived information to various geographic and social scientific disciplines that make use of mapping, GIS, SIM and SDI systems and procedures. The aspiration is that these will give rise to the examination and legalisation of the legitimacy of big geodata and related processes and management procedures as a reliable spatial, environmental and sustainable infrastructure on local, as well as on global, scales.

Commission 3 WORKSHOP Theme

While the workshop focus is on effective utilization of VGI within the framework of SDI and SIM, a larger number of topics of interest related to SDI, SIM, VGI and crowdsourcing will be discussed. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • National Mapping Agencies (NMAs): practices with VGI and managing of spatial information; theory, applications and best practice studies
  • Land management tools and innovative spatial information solutions addressing global and national challenges
  • Utilization of VGI and crowdsourcing with SDI and SIM on collection, dissemination, analysis, maintenance, and visualization
  • Applications of VGI in managing the built environment, legalization monitoring, property registration, planning reforms
  • Early warning systems, climate change, natural disasters and environmental protection: adapting working paradigms; case studies and possibilities
  • Tackling VGI and PM credibility issues: interoperability, uncertainty, quality, authenticity, validity
  • PM and Citizens Science – case studies and processes

Commission 7 WORKSHOP Theme

Topics will include, but are not limited to:

  • Mobile technology to support the recording of evidence of land rights.
  • Experience and case studies of working with citizens to crowdsource evidence of land rights.
  • Citizens’ reactions to perceived benefits of crowdsourced land and natural resource rights.
  • Use of LADM / STDM in this application.
  • Approaches to authenticating crowdsourced evidence of land rights.
  • Experiences in using trusted intermediaries / para-surveyors to support citizens in recording evidence of land rights and approaches to scaling-up operations.
  • Managing access and privacy around the sensitivity of land and natural resource rights information.
  • Experience in formalising crowdsourced land rights with Land Registration and Cadastral Agencies.
    GGlobal platforms to manage and provide access to the crowdsourced evidence of land rights.

26 August 2015