Application of Refactoring and Design Pattern in Land Information System Development

The unceasing change problem of land information systems can be resolved through the refactoring and design pattern. To promote the implementation of design pattern and refactoring methods in developing land information systems reusing software design, applying refactoring methods to the abstract factory and decorator design patterns in land information system development is discussed.

Review of studies on land use and land cover change in Nepal

Land use and land cover(LULC) in Nepal has undergone constant change over the past few decades due to major changes caused by anthropogenic and natural factors and their impacts on the national and regional environment and climate.This comprehensive review of past and present studies of land use and land cover change(LUCC) in Nepal concentrates on cropland, grassland, forest, snow/glacier cover and urban areas. While most small area studies have gathered data from different sources and research over a short period, across large areas most historical studies have been based on aerial photographs such as the Land Resource Mapping Project in 1986. The recent trend in studies in Nepal is to focus on new concepts and techniques to analyze LULC status on the basis of satellite imagery, with the help of geographic information system and remote sensing tools. Studies based on historical documents, and historical and recent spatial data on LULC, have clearly shown an increase in cropland areas in Nepal,and present results indicating different rates and magnitudes. A decrease in forest and snow/glacier coverage is reported in most studies. Little information is available on grassland and urban areas from past research. The unprecedented rate of urbanization in Nepal has led to significant urban land changes over the past 30 years. Meanwhile, long term historical LUCC research in Nepal is required for extensive work on spatially explicit reconstructions on the basis of historical and primary data collection, including LULC archives and drivers for future change.

Formalizing Land Administration through E-Governance Mechanism in Sri Lanka

This paper proposes a comprehensive and practical approach to implement a land administration act in Sri Lanka followed by setting up a Land Administration Commission (LAC), which is a separate entity to maintain a Land Administration Database Management System in support of the land information collected and maintained by stakeholders who deal with matters related to land and its decision-making under e-governance concept. Also, It describes the operations of the four core functions: land tenure, land valuation, land use, and land development in land administration under a single sustainable national land policy, underpinned by spatial information under the e-Governance mechanism. Further, the paper identifies the stakeholders and their main responsibilities in each of the four core functions with the current issues in sharing information across stakeholders. Finally, the paper describes setting up a Land administration entity thereby empowering the LAC and introduces spatial information layers at different resolution levels in a centralized land administration spatial database to keep track of all land transactions carried out by each stakeholder. This approach will enable the top-level decision-making authority (the central level) to manage all land-related activities under one platform to contribute towards the sustainable land development of the country. It is proposed to implement this approach as a pilot activity in the district of Colombo and expand it in the entire country gradually with its output.

User and Systems Requirement Framework for Electronic Land Registration Systems Decentralisation in Ghana

Although land registration systems are constantly changing based on entrenched institutional frameworks,they cannot fulfill their technical objectives.Technical designs based on loopholes in the existing land registration system are the common steps in advanced countries.However,the missing link between the implementation of technical designs and their uses and users,affect the prospects of land registration decentralisation in developing countries.User and System requirements are used to integrate and enhance land registration services delivery across land information systems.This study assesses and develops framework for decentralised electronic land registration systems in Ghana.Semi-structured interviews were used to collect user and system requirement data from clients and technical staff of the Lands Commission in Accra.The framework pointed out five main policy outline strategies.These include land registration process modeling(process reduction and turnaround time monitoring),technical function(file tracking),the effect of changes in the registration loupe and absorption of land registration report,land registration workflow improvement,and the use of aerial images.The study recommends a systemic monitoring and evaluation of staff job roles.

Macroeconomic Instabilities and Cost-Recovery Potentials of Public Sector Organisations

The 2008 financial crisis raised concerns over the performance of public sector organisations operating under different cost recovery regimes.These concerns were linked to potential failure in attaining cost recovery targets as a result of declining revenues during economic downturn.This study utilised the Linear Mixed Effect(LME)models to analyse the data from the World Bank Indicator website and from six national Land Administration Organisations(LAOs),two of which being under“No cost recovery”(NCR)and the remaining being in“Full Cost Recovery”(FCR).Cost recovery indicators were computed from financial statement of national LAOs of these countries.The findings establish that a global financial crisis that is associated with declining GDP and a higher inflation rate can insignificantly reduce the level of cost recovery for LAOs while persistent decline in GDP growth rate significantly eliminates potentials for cost recovery.However prospects for recovery can be traced within the cost-revenue microstructures of LAOs themselves.With a significantly negative relationship between spending in information and technology as a ratio of GDP to the degree of cost recovery,LAOs need only to eliminate rigidities in their cost-revenue structure which tie them to macro-instabilities of the real estate market.Such flexibility can be attained through elastic cross-substitution in the LAO’s gross cost-revenues schedules for registration tasks in favour of information delivery tasks.

Distributed Estimation and Analysis of Precipitation Recharge Coefficient in Strongly-exploited Beijing Plain Area, China

The precipitation recharge coefficient(PRC), representing the amount of groundwater recharge from precipitation, is an important parameter for groundwater resources evaluation and numerical simulation. It was usually obtained from empirical knowledge and site experiments in the 1980 s. However, the environmental settings have been greatly modified from that time due to land use change and groundwater over-pumping, especially in the Beijing plain area(BPA). This paper aims to estimate and analyze PRC of BPA with the distributed hydrological model and GIS for the year 2011 with similar annual precipitation as long-term mean. It is found that the recharge from vertical(precipitation + irrigation) and precipitation is 291.0 mm/yr and 233.7 mm/yr, respectively, which accounts for 38.6% and 36.6% of corresponding input water. The regional mean PRC is 0.366, which is a little different from the traditional map. However, it has a spatial variation ranging from –7.0% to 17.5% for various sub-regions. Since the vadose zone is now much thicker than the evaporation extinction depth, the land cover is regarded as the major dynamic factor that causes the variation of PRC in this area due to the difference of evapotranspiration rates. It is suggested that the negative impact of reforestation on groundwater quantity within BPA should be well investigated, because the PRC beneath forestland is the smallest among all land cover types.