Applications of land information systems in land re-adjustment projects : "Lesotho experience".

Abstract

Land information is a an important resource in planning, and in undertaking land administration functions such as allocation of interests to land, land adjudication, land valuation, physical planning, etc. Rapid urbanization, however, puts great pressure on personnel delegated to undertake these functions. The personnel can no longer cope with capturing, processing and disseminating land information for the increasing urban population. Observing the failures of land information management to cope with rapid urbanization, the researcher undertook an exploration into the capabilities of LIS to manage land informatioo for The Millennium Park Land Development Project (MPLDP) in Maseru, the Lesotho capital. The project is based on land readjustment principles and is of mulli-stakeholdership. Such big and networked projects have been shown to be associated with land information management problems. Undertaking this research was motivated by many success stories however, world wide, in which LIS was introduced as a tool to assist in land information management. The main themes in this project are firstly, the study of Land re-adjustment as a land management technique to meet land demand for urbanization and secondly land information system as a tool to manage land information for a land re-adjustment project. Study of LR will help understand what land information is required for such a land management project. Study of land information system will help exploring its capabilities that can be applied to manage land in formation for LR projects. Furthermore, as a case study to this, the MPLDP system is analysed. examining the activities and ways in which land information is managed. This analysis is aimed at identifying the constraints that result in the observed back logs in the project activities; and recommending improvements. Many problems and constraints are identified in the MPLDP. As a land surveyor, only improvements related to technical constraints are considered in this research, with cognizance of the legal and institutional issues that need to be addressed in implementation of these improvements. The main improvement discussed is the creation of automated databases and illustrations are given on how these databases could be used to manage land information effectively for the MPLDP.