The point cadastre requirement revisited

Certain countries need to establish a faster, cheaper and more fit-for-purpose cadastre than those offered by conventional strategies. This paper reintroduces the strategy of the point cadastre: a cadastral system where geographic points are used to represent land parcels. When point features are combined with satellite imagery, freely available topographic maps (e.g. OpenStreetMap) and managed using cloud based geographic information services, a simple cadastral solution becomes apparent. This paper concentrates only on defining drivers and requirements for point cadastres. Three discrete studies were used to generate the requirements: expert group meetings, a pressure cooker meeting and an online questionnaire. The requirements are classified under preparation, functional, quality and architectural categories. Preparation requirements illustrate the need for contextual awareness before commencing any point cadastral project. Functional requirements are found to be similar to the requirements of parcel based cadastres; however, the necessity for parcel boundary identification is removed. Quality requirements promote the need for 'ease of use' and 'low cost': 'accuracy' is found to rank lowest out of six quality requirements. Architectural requirements provide various options for collecting, storing, maintaining and visualising the cadastral point information. Together, the requirements provide a basic blueprint for cadastral practitioners considering point cadastre solutions. Further work is required on development of indicators for assessing achievement of the requirements in practice.