Nicos C. Roussos
Cyprus is an island situated in the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea. It lies at 33øE and 33øN and has an extent of 9251 square Km. It is an independent country since 1960. Unfortunately, almost 38% of the country has been occupied by Turkey since 1974. The free part of the country has an extent of 5575 sq. km, fragmented into 1.2 million land parcels and a population of 0.6 million people.
The Cyprus Cadastre and the Land Registration system which are operating today were introduced almost a century ago. The Land Registration system is the "Registration of Title" system, which is based on a series of cadastral plans of varying scale (1:500-1:5000) and accuracy, most of them being graphical. Although the system has all the advantages of the "Registration of Title" system, it has been proved that it cannot fulfill the highly demanding requirements of the rapid development of the country. The two basic drawbacks are the time consuming manual procedures for property conveyancing and the poor accuracy of most of the graphical cadastral plans which does not guarantee the rule of "unambiguous definition of parcels".
The Department of Lands and Surveys (DLS) is the State agency responsible to apply, among other things, the activities of the laws related to landed property matter. It consists of a composite service comprising land registration, valuation of properties, management of State lands, surveying and mapping. The Department issues yearly more than 130000 certificates of registration and searches and 100000 copies of cadastral plans. It deals with 90000 applications, either for registration or surveying purposes. The Headquarters of the Department are in Nicosia, but the bulk of the operations are carried out in regional offices, one in each administrative district (Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Famagusta and Paphos).
Cyprus operates a graphical multi-purpose cadastre. The heart of the cadastre is the land administration system which is operating in the country. The Department of Lands and Surveys maintains the core of the data required for the multipurpose cadastre, that is a series of cadastral plans and large scale topographical maps, the land registers, and data about valuation of immovable properties. The cadastral plans being the base mapping for reference, and the land records being the core of information. Many semi- government organizations and authorities, government departments and private sector agencies, maintain and use land related data in spatial or aspatial form for their needs. A great majority of this data is either drawn on hard-copies of the cadastral plans or it is indirectly related to the plans and land records.
The land administration system and the graphical multipurpose cadastre suffers from bureaucratic and time consuming procedures and low accuracy survey data. The Government of Cyprus and the Department of Lands and Surveys embarked upon a development program, the "Cyprus Land Information Project" (CLIP) to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Departmental activities, taking advantage of the available technology and modern cost effective survey instrumentation and techniques. The CLIP program is the result of a number of studies and research carried out between 1987 and 1992 with the advice and help of SAGRIC International of South Australia.
The CLIP program includes:
a. The resurvey of the properties in almost the whole country by modern and accurate techniques,
b. The development and installation of a land information system for the needs of the DLS, and
c. The gradual establishment of an integrated National Land Information System to replace the graphical multipurpose cadastre of the country.
A strategic decision has been taken to implement a "Fixed boundary coordinated cadastre" in the country. One of the basic reasons for this decision is the nature of boundaries in Cyprus which does not permit the system of "General boundaries" to operate. Most of the boundaries are invisible lines, ill defined on the ground. People are trying to define their boundaries by using the graphical plans. The inaccuracy of these plans generates many problems and a considerable amount of disputes have to be resolved by courts.
A second important strategic decision was the development of a private surveying industry. Suitable qualified surveyors would initially assist in any new survey and could have an important role later after the establishment of the new cadastral system. Survey requirements such as demarcations, sub-divisions, amalgamations, etc, could become the domain of the private sector, thus allowing the DLS to concentrate on extending the coordinated cadastre. A new Survey Act will be prepared to support the re-survey and to specify the role of the private sector.
The "fixed boundary coordinated cadastre" is one which is based on control network of survey marks, so that the parcel framework is directly related to the geodetic network. The coordinates of each boundary turning point, which will be computed and validated by a number of redundant observations, will be the base data for boundary definition. The involvement of the private sector and the important role of the coordinates requires high consistency and relative accuracy of the geodetic framework.
The existing geodetic network has been proved to suffer from both observational and computational errors. The Department of Lands and Surveys has decided to establish a new Primary Geodetic Network which will be the basis for both the Resurvey program and the Land Information System.
After a number of studies and tests, it was decided to adopt the WGS84 earth-centered spheroid, and a local datum. A Local Transverse Mercator (LTM) projection system was also chosen. The Cyprus LTM has the same Central Meridian (33ø E) as the zone 36 of the UTM System, but a better scale factor (0.9999) was used. With these elements, the maximum scale error in any place of the country is 1:7500.
Using GPS technology, a new primary and secondary network has already been established. The primary network consists of 40 points and the secondary network consists of 254 points. The Tertiary network will consist of points, 200 to 500 meters apart. The establishment of this network is in progress.
Photogrammetry is planned to play an important role in the process of both the resurvey program and the establishment of the National L.I.S. The Department operates a small photogrammetric unit with one analytical stereoplotter and three analogue instruments, two of which have been upgraded with digital data capture components. The acquisition of a second analytical plotter has already been decided.
A large scale photography at scales 1:8000 and 1:15000 was flown in 1993. Air photographs are used for the survey of all physical boundaries and they will also be used for collecting data for the L.I.S., such as topographical details and heights.
The proposed LIS in the Department of Lands and Surveys will initially have two major application components:
a. The Survey Related Applications (Geographical Component)
b. The Legal/Fiscal Applications (Legal/Fiscal Component)
Three basic databases will be developed in the Department, the Survey Database, the Digital Cadastral Database, and the Legal/Fiscal Database. The Survey Database and the Digital Cadastral Database will constitute the spatial component of the LIS, and the Legal/Fiscal database refers to the aspatial data.
The objective of the Department is to establish an integrated system where the three databases will operate as one single corporate database, which will contain the survey dataset, the digital cadastral dataset, topographical overlays, the legal/fiscal dataset, sales history data, and other useful data. Around the database, a number of application systems will be developed. These systems will basically include applications for data entry, maintenance, analysis, enquiry and output.
The core of the spatial component of the LIS will be a GIS package which must include sufficient tools to support:
a. The current survey related functions of the Department.
b. The general re-survey program and the establishment of a fixed boundary coordinated cadastre.
c. The digitization of cadastral plans and topographical maps.
d. Spatial enquiry and analysis facilities.
The spatial component will consist of the two databases, and application systems for data entry, maintenance and spatial enquiry and analysis. Both databases of the LIS geographical (spatial) component will be totally integrated so that information can flow between them efficiently and without any difficulties. Enquiries to both of these databases will be performed through the enquiry and analysis module of the LIS. The Legal/Fiscal database will also have a direct access to the geographical component.
The Survey Database (SDB) will store information related to the geodetic network, current survey data, and historical records of all surveys. The SDB will be the repository for detail from the original source records of the surveys that underpin the cadastral framework. It will also be the reference system for applications that require dimensions or survey accurate coordinates. More specifically, the SDB will contain Survey data, coordinates, textual information for the geodetic network, and all boundary turning points (BTPs), topology, parcel dimensions, areas, boundary descriptions and historical survey and land information. Whenever a parcel of land is updated, its spatial and aspatial data will be archived for future access. In a similar function, the SDB will retain all surveys and hence the spatial definition of parcels for historical access.
The objective of the SDB is to assure that the economy of the country is supported by a system able to efficiently provide timely, accurate and comprehensive survey information. It will also contain the underpinning data for the Digital Cadastral Dadabase.
The Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB) is designed to provide an up-to-date continuous cadastral map base to support cadastral mapping and the LIS functions. The DCDB is proposed to be the database that will store the current cadastral framework, thematic overlays and topographical data in a seamless form.
The main objectives of the DCDB are:
a. Replace the manual techniques associated with the creation and maintenance of the cadastral plans at various scales.
b. Provide the spatial underlay for an integrated LIS
c. Ensure that the spatial underlay is correct and up-to-date for all users, both in DLS and in other organizations.
Two major data entry systems are included in this part of the LIS:
a. Survey Data Input System (SDIS).
This data entry system will be used for entering data from ground surveys (data loggers and field books), photogrammetry, and existing records, and for transferring data from other systems. It will include packages for survey computations, adjustments, and survey examination systems. It will also be used for the preparation of survey data for the surveyors, statistics and survey plans.
b. DCDB - Creation System (DCDB-CS).
This system will be used for transferring existing cadastral maps to digital form (either by digitizing or vectorizing raster images) and automatically create attributes from cadastral parcel topology. It will also be used for preparing survey, cadastral and thematic plans. The system will include modules for creating topology from spatial data in spaghetti form. Several transformation techniques will be available to be used during data entry.
Two systems are included for the maintenance of both the Survey Database and the Digital Cadastral Database, namely:
a. Survey Data Maintenance System (SDMS)
b. DCDB Maintenance System (DCDB-MS)
These modules will involve several transformation techniques for maintaining and upgrading existing data, updating or editing coordinates and textual attributes. Updates and upgrades will be possible within spatial windows using extract and post-back techniques and through irregular polygonal windows. Updating of shared nodes to automatically correct all related line segments will be another functionality of the system. Preparation of plans will also be available in this system.
The DCDB maintenance system will be particularly useful during the process of creating the DCDB. Theoretically, the digital cadastral database will automatically be created from the survey database. But given that the resurvey program will be completed, under the most optimistic estimations, in ten years, there is the requirement to create an interim version of the DCDB for many areas, by digitizing the existing plans. After the resurvey of an administrative area, the interim DCDB for that area will be replaced by the new version of the DCDB which will be created from the SDB. This process is called upgrading. Gradually the interim DCDB will be upgraded and in ten years it will contain only sound information.
The Geographical/Spatial Enquiry and Analysis System will be the module which enables enquiry and analysis access to, and hardcopy and softcopy displays of, the various data sets in the SDB and the DCDB. The GEAS will embrace, inter alia the operations of Geographic manipulation, analysis, display and hardcopy of the spatial and aspatial data held within the databases. The on-line and off-line plotting facilities in a variety of plotting systems and the analysis based on the polygon topology are standard requirements.
The GEAS module will provide the facility for the temporary integration of external aspatial data sets, including attributes held in the legal/fiscal database for the preparation of integrated thematic products. It will also provide the facility to read and generate data in industry standard, and/or de facto standard, digital exchange formats used commonly by GIS systems.
The basic general objectives of the legal/fiscal component of the proposed LIS are:
a. Store and maintain in digital form the land registers and other land records.
b. Facilitate transactions by providing on-line access and maintenance.
c. Provide administrative and statistical support.
d. Provide a document tracking system.
e. Support Computer Aided Valuations.
The legal/fiscal activities of the Department are diverse. The functional areas to be supported and the facilities to be provided in the initial implementation of the system, were carefully selected during the users requirements and analysis stages. Consideration was given to the scope of the initial system and from this, the system functionality was determined. The volume of the work involved, the proposed use of the data, the complexity of some functions, and the benefits to be gained were among the criteria for deciding which functions should be automated.
The system should provide on-line support to almost all branches of a District Lands Office, including the applications, declarations, mortgages, forced sales, attachments, local enquiry, registration, checkers, tenure, land consolidation, leases, license, notations and valuations. In addition to the acceleration to the transaction procedures, the system will enable the computer-aided preparation of all certificates (including the certificates of registration), statistical data, digital files for data required by other agencies, i.e, a list of property with the market value for each owner per village or town or countrywide for fiscal purposes.
A number of application systems will be developed to support the Computer Aided Valuation (CAV). The main objectives of the CAV systems are:
a. Support all valuation-related functions of DLS
b. Provide an ability of a general valuation every 1-3 years for taxation and other purposes, and
c. Provide administrative and statistical support.
Four CAV application systems will be developed, namely: CAMAS, CAVAS, CASV and RPES.
a. CAMAS (Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal System). This system will be used to produce an individual market relation of all properties as at a certain date, in accordance with the existing law, as a basis for various property taxes levied by the Government.
b. CAVAS (Computer Assisted Valuation Audit System). This component will provide the ability to monitor the current assessment for both uniformity and level of value measured in relation to the current market.
c. CASV (Computer Assisted Special Valuation System). The CASV will provide the tracking system for special valuations ie. for acquisitions, enquiries, and preparation of reports.
d. RPES (Real Property Enquiry System). The RPES is a functional requirement which will enable the Valuations Branch to provide, to both the public and the private sector, a data selection system of both current and historical nature.
The Computer infrastructure for establishing the comprehensive Land Information System within the Department of Lands and Surveys will allow distributed functionality in terms of placing hardware, software and data into districts, but maintaining a centralized data administration role at the Headquarters in Nicosia.
Each District site will have the responsibility for the collection and maintenance of LIS data in its geographical area. These sites will co-operate such that any authorized user at any site can access any LIS data as if the data were stored at the user's own site ie. a whole-of-country seamless LIS database could be presented to the user. A DLS information center will be established in Nicosia for supporting the system and maintaining a replicated whole-of-country database for security reasons.
The Systems Hardware Infrastructure consists of computers, disk and tape sub-systems, network and peripheral equipment such as printers, digitizers, plotters, etc. The computers consist of Level-1 processors and workstations. The Level-1 processors are intended to support large corporate wide aspatial/spatial applications and data management functions within a district environment. They will be required to provide database server facilities for workstation inquiries from all remote users regardless of their location throughout Cyprus.
The workstations consist of: personal computer (PC) based workstations for corporate LIS transaction processing, and technical workstations for CPU intensive graphics based acquisition and mapping applications. The workstations are intended to support applications and data management functions for work groups located at district offices. They are intended to provide the user interface to all applications and databases.
The system software include the operating systems, the corporate database management system, the various application software, and the network software. The nucleus of the LIS system will be a corporate Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). It is going to be a distributed data processing system in the sense that it will support systems in all districts. It will preferably be a seamless continuous database across these geographical areas.
The survey related applications will be built using the tools of one or more GIS products. There is a preference for this GIS to be integrated as closely as possible with the RDBMS, though in ideal world this GIS will cooperate very closely with RDBMS if it is not built on the same RDBMS. The legal/fiscal applications will be developed locally using the development tools available with the relational database system.
It is proposed that the Land Information System that will be established in the Department of Lands and Surveys be extended to an Integrated National Land Information System (NLIS). This system will ultimately cover the whole country of Cyprus. The NLIS will be able to support integrated spatial and aspatial applications, and it will provide a solid underpinning foundation for integrating future land information applications. It will also provide logical seamless distributed spatial and aspatial Databases across all the districts.
The NLIS will be developed under an open architecture environment so that any utilities or other land related agencies can interchange information through the NLIS network efficiently. The design of seamless databases will provide in the near future a hub capable of supporting data exchange and interoperability between many other organizations using land related data.
Taking into account the complexity of such a system and the large number of organizations that are involved, it is very difficult or almost impossible to organize a single system to cover effectively the requirements expected by each organization. It will be necessary to integrate various land related management systems operating in various organizations. These requirements lead to the following definition of the Cyprus National Land Information System:
"The Cyprus National Land Information system will be the totality of all government and non- government Land Information Systems. It will include the underpinning data management systems, any Geographical Information System or systems required to support the spatial requirements of various organizations, and all customized application systems operating on land related data. The major objective of such a system is the integration and interoperability between all these components".
The National LIS will be established in steps and it will be flexible enough to permit the successive addition of new kinds of data. The core of the system will be the systems that will be established in the DLS. A National Land Information center will initially be established within the Department of Lands and Surveys on the same environment as the Information Center of the Department. Any interested organizations will be linked to the center via a country network. All partners will be connected to the National Information center where the mutual analysis of data will be carried out. The exchange of data between the users will not be possible at this stage.
The final objective of the National system is to be a fully distributed processing system, where each organization will keep and maintain the data for which it will be responsible. The data of each organization will be divided into two groups, the data of "common interest", and the agency specific data that will be used only by the owner. The data of common interest will be stored in common standards and will be available through the network to any interested organization or individual. The role of the National Land Information System will be to advise, coordinate and support those organizations which will not be in position to create their own centers.
The Government of Cyprus, recognizing the importance of controlling the land information development in the country established the Cyprus Land Information Management Council (CLIMC). The Council was constituted late in 1994 with the Director-General of the Ministry of Interior as Chairman, and representatives of Government agencies, including the Director of the Department of Lands and Surveys, Utility Organizations and Local Authorities. An Executive Secretary was also appointed to support the activities of the Council.
The mission is development of a National Strategy on land information management with the aims of:
- establishing cost-efficient access to land information to enable effective decision
- making on social and economic issues to be made from a sound information base,
- providing the mechanism for efficient data transfer between all users of land information.
The objectives of the Land Information Management Council can be summarized as follows:
- To develop a corporate approach to land information management in Cyprus.
- To advice all levels of government on land information management, and to promote and monitor its development, uses and benefits to the land information industry.
- To ensure the cost-effective provision of land information through planned development and consistent maintenance and enhancement.
- To ensure that the Cyprus Land Information System is maintained at a level of integrity commensurate with all levels of user needs.
- To take the lead in the development of data standards and definitions to enable the generation of integrated land information products.
- To ensure access to land information without infringing individual rights
- To establish a National Directory of Land Information.
- To address the required academic and training needs of land information management.
- To support research and development of technology relevant to land information management.
- To adopt a business approach to the operation of the Cyprus Land Information System, and to optimize its commercial potential to the best interests of Cyprus.
A considerable number of preparatory tasks have been carried out, including the contractual agreement, after international tenders, with the successful tenderers for the supply of information technology and services for the development of the LIS System. The agreement provides for the supply of SUN computers for both level-1 computers and workstations with UNIX operating System, the ORACLE Relational Database Management System with Oracle Case tools, the ArcInfo GIS package with ARC/COGO, ARC/SCAN and ARC/STORM. The application packages for the geographical component of the systems will be developed by Esri and the legal/fiscal applications including CAV systems will be developed by Dansoftware International.
The Development of the LIS System will start next September and it will be implemented in a pilot area consisting of 200000 land parcels in Nicosia district, by the end of 1996. The implementation of the System in all districts within the DLS will start early in 1997 and is expected to be completed in two years.
The preparatory work for the National System has already started and it will continue until the end of 1996. During this period, it is expected to agree on standards, methodologies and strategies, for the cooperation between the partners of the system. At the same time a lot of information from various organizations will be collected and maintained in temporary systems. The operation of an integrated system is expected to start early in 1997.