THE MAASAI OF SOUTHERN KENYA DOMAIN MODEL OF LAND USE

We present a domain model that formalises the human-land relations in the Maasai nomadic pastoralist society in Kenya, referred to as MSKDM, and its integration with the prominent Land Administration Domain Model (LADM). Our long-term aim is to facilitate a land administration system that can accurately capture and express salient Maasai concepts of land use, ownership, communal tenure, and to assist in transparency during land transactions. We use an extensive corpus of existing research literature, and input from our own on-site workshops, as source material for our domain model. We use real sketch maps drawn by Maasai community members that we collected during our field studies for validation, and to demonstrate how our model can be operationalised

Generalized, inaccurate,incomplete: How to comprehensively analyze sketch maps beyond their metric correctness

Sketch mapping is a method to investigate a person’s spatial perception and knowledge about the surrounding environment. While cartographic maps can be easily evaluated with respect to the represented features, map scale, and spatial accuracy, there still does not exist a comprehensive method to evaluate sketch maps. This paper aims to overcome this gap and proposes a sketch map analysis method that allows for analyzing the completeness, generalization and (qualitative) spatial accuracy of the sketched information in a three-step process. After describing the method, we illustrate how our computer-supported method performs in a use case with three sketch maps. Our approach may assist researchers in geography, psychology, and education to evaluate spatial knowledge in a systematic way independent of specific research questions and experimental scenarios

Towards innovative geospatial tools for fit-for-purpose land rights mapping

© Authors 2017. CC BY 4.0 License. In large parts of sub Saharan Africa it remains an ongoing challenging to map millions of unrecognized land rights. Existing approaches for recognizing these rights have proven inappropriate in many cases. A new generation of tools needs to be developed to support faster, cheaper, easier, and more responsible land rights mapping. This is the main goal of its4land, an European Commission Horizon 2020 project that aims to develop innovative tools inspired by the continuum of land rights, fit-for-purpose land administration, and cadastral intelligence. its4land is using strategic collaboration between the EU and East Africa to deliver innovative, scalable, and transferrable ICT solutions. The innovation process incorporates a broad range of stakeholders and emergent geospatial technologies, including smart sketchmaps, UAVs, automated feature extraction, as well as geocloud services. The aim is to combine innovative technologies, capture the specific needs, market opportunities and readiness of end-users in the domain of land tenure information recording in Eastern Africa. The project consists of a four year work plan, €3.9M funding, and eight consortium partners collaborating with stakeholders from six case study locations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. The major tasks include tool development, prototyping, and demonstration for local, national, regional, and international interest groups. The case locations cover different land uses such as: urban, peri-urban, rural smallholder, and (former) pastoralist. This paper describes the project's activities within the first 18 months and covers barriers discovered, lessons learned and results achieved.status: publishe

its4land - Challenges and opportunities in developing innovative geospatial tools for fit-for-purpose land rights mapping

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Its4land - Innovative Geospatial Tools for Fit-for-Purpose Land Rights Mapping

no ISSN or ISBNstatus: publishe

Innovative geospatial solutions for land tenure mapping

There are millions of unrecorded land rights in sub-Saharan Africa, which are still not mapped. Therefore, there is a clear demand for innovative solutions for land tenure recording, as also written in the target 1.4 of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In response to this need, the consortia of “its4land” European Commission Horizon 2020 project developed the “its4land toolbox” based on the continuum of land rights and fit-for-purpose approach. The advanced technological solutions of the toolbox include smart sketch maps, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), interactive boundary delineator, as well as sharing and publishing land information via geocloud services. The solutions are based on specific needs, market opportunities, and readiness of end-users. Moreover, aiming in scaling up broader governance implications are examined. During the project lifetime, the main technical tasks included tool development, prototyping, and demonstration of the tools to local, regional, national, and international users and stakeholders. Furthermore, equal emphasis was placed on needs assessment, governance, capacity, and business modeling. The current paper presents the unique its4land land administration toolbox in which the key exploitable results of the project are integrated in a joint used case in Rwanda