At PLUS - Responsible Land Administration and Information Modeling, we work towards resilient, equitable, and accountable land institutions and governance. Our projects deal with challenges of land consolidation and conflicts over land in settings where land rights are not always known, and where triggers such as natural disasters or armed conflicts, ask for timely responses. Our approaches often focus on Fit-For-Purposes solutions, in countries as diverse as Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, or Colombia. We strive for strengthening land institutions and education in our target countries, collaborating with local partners in the development of MOOCs, joint educational programs and e-learning platforms (e.g. Teaching Essential for Responsible Land Administration). Projects such as "Land@Scale" illustrate our commitment to responsible land administration.
Our work contributes towards our joint vision to empower society with specialized knowledge and expertise on spatial and temporal interactions between people, land tenure, land use, urban systems, and the underlying governance processes to support inclusive planning and decision-making. We excel in the use of geoinformation technologies for Land Administration. The H2020 European project “its4land”, which obtained the ”Geospatial World Innovation Award” in 2021, is clear evidence of the success of our efforts.
Our research explores innovative data acquisition sensors and platforms such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for fast, affordable, and highly accurate image-data sources. Following fit-for-purpose approaches aiming at fast recording of the 70 % of unmapped Worldwide areas, we investigate indirect land mapping methods incorporating innovative machine learning algorithms based on remotely sensed data combined with interactive functionalities to speed up the cadastral registration data. We investigate policies and requirements for fair property valuation and taxation systems in a variety of countries, including 3D and 4D aspects.
At PLUS we stand for People, Land and Urban Systems, and this is how we contribute to Responsible land administration and information modeling.