a. to group the national associations or organiza
tions of surveyors of all countries with the object
of interchanging views on matters of general
interest to the profession.
b. To organize liaison between the various affiliated
associations.
c. To make known information on the social condi
tions prevailing amongst professional surveyors in
individual countries so that each may take ad
vantage of the improvements attained.
d. To encourage, subsidize and disseminate the
results of professional research and discoveries
useful to surveyors in the scientific, technical,
legal, economic and social spheres.
e. To coordinate professional training in accordance
with new methods.
f. To foster relations with the appropriate authorities
and the exchange of surveying personnel between
different countries.
The main thing we learn from this article is that the
F.I.G. is above all a meeting place for surveyors of
all countiies. The F.I.G. is not an organization to
execute professional research. The working groups,
operating within some of the nine commissions,
have as their main aim the exchange of views and
the dissemination of the results of professional
research and discoveries in their special fields.
In many cases the well-functioning of the F.I.G. is
rather problematic. The existing big differences
make it difficult to reach the rather limited goals.
For that matter I only have to mention the lan
guage problems and the big differences which exist
among the F.I.G. member-nations regarding:
- the legal bases of the work of the surveyor
- the level of the education
- the geographical, climatological and last but not
least the political and social circumstances.
It is thought to be sensible to be well aware of the
limitations caused by the width of the profession
and the big differences among the member-nations
when paying attention to the topic land information
systems.
Land Information Systems
It is an interesting fact that in the developing coun
tries as well as in the highly developed ones the
necessity of better and quicker information of the
physical and social environments has increased
during the last few decades.
It was realised that optimum development is possible
only on basis of reliable, qualitatively and quanti
tatively adequate information.
The concentration process in industrial society and
the developments in agricultural economy caused
the availability of land to be reduced and the quality
of the environment to be appreciably interfered with.
This made the necessity for stricter and far more
differentiated planning of the utilisation of the land
more and more evident. This planning can likewise
only be realised by virtue of reliable, adequate and
always topical land information systems. Land in
formation systems or land data systems are Informa
tion Systems containing data of geographic and/or
administrative units to which other information can
be linked. The main characteristic of those units is
the fact that they have a fixed place with respect to
the earth's surface.
Land information systems are built up for a great
number of different purposes. In a historical
sequence they are:
- Taxes. Because land parcels have a fixed place on
the surface of the earth and because they are
visible for everyone, they are suitable objects for
the levying of taxes. From ancient times there are
information systems for land-tax.
- Titles to land. The cadastres or land-title recording
systems have a history of a few hundred years.
- Supervision. This is the critical watching and
directing of real estate in order to meet certain
requirements.
- Renewal. Herewith is meant the renewal of urban
and country areas including large civil engineering
projects.
Examples are the reallotments in Western-Europe
started about seventy years ago.
- Planning. This is the decision at various admini
strative levels on the use of real estate. Since 1967
or thereabout we have seen a great upsurge in the
volume of planning research. The new designing
methods asked for up-to-date information, so
land information systems for planning purposes
had to be developed.
ngt 79
B
