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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (16 December 2019) | Viewed by 70787

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rohan Bennett

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Guest Editor

Department of Business Technology and Entrepreneurship, School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Interests: ICT4D; land informatics; digital business
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Peter Van Oosterom

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Guest Editor

Department of OTB, TU-Delft, Delft, The Netherlands
Interests: spatial databases; map generalization; 3D cadastre; point clouds; geomatics
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Prof. Christiaan Lemmen

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Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Twente, The Netherlands
Interests: satellite imagery; cadastre; land tenure; land
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Dr. Mila Koeva

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Guest Editor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Interests: 3D land information; photogrammetry and remote sensing; UAV; 3D modeling and visualization/digital twins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is dedicated to land administration, that is, the systems used to govern the way land tenure, use, and value are organized amongst people within a jurisdiction. Spatial information, embedded in cadastral maps, is fundamental to these systems. Large-scale vector boundary representations are historically generated using ground-based techniques, however, the dual forces of advances in remote sensing and emergent societal challenges are driving new approaches. Issues of poverty reduction, rapid urbanisation, vertical expansion, and complex infrastructure governance require more rapid, cost-effective, and tailored approaches to 2D and 3D land data creation, analysis, and maintenance. Under exploration are applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), laser scanning both airborne and terrestrial (LiDAR), radar interferometry, and automatic feature extraction techniques. Therefore, the specific focus of this Special Issue is the intersection of emergent remote sensing tools and techniques, and the potential contribution to the domain of land administration

Papers are expected to address the following topics:

-Comparisons of alternate remote sensing techniques for 2D and 3D data capture relevant to land administration and cadastres (including UAV imagery, VHRSI, RADAR, LiDAR, and multi-spectral approaches)

-Design and testing of techniques for 2D and 3D cadastral feature extraction from remotely-sensed data sources (including semi-automated methods, algorithm design, and object-based approaches)

-Modelling of data production workflows for scaled 2D and 3D cadastral production (including segmentation techniques, line extraction, contour generation, and pre/post processing requirements)

-Observations from illustrative cases highlighting leading practices in data integration and utilization for 2D and 3D land administration (including both city, provincial, and national level examples)

Assoc. Prof. Rohan Bennett
Prof. Peter van Oosterom
Prof. Christiaan Lemmen
Dr. Mila Koeva
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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8 pages, 211 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Remote Sensing for Land Administration

by Rohan Bennett, Peter van Oosterom, Christiaan Lemmen and Mila Koeva

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(15), 2497; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12152497 - 4 Aug 2020

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 7242

Abstract

Land administration constitutes the socio-technical systems that govern land tenure, use, value and development within a jurisdiction. The land parcel is the fundamental unit of analysis. Each parcel has identifiable boundaries, associated rights, and linked parties. Spatial information is fundamental. It represents the boundaries between land parcels and is embedded in cadastral sketches, plans, maps and databases. The boundaries are expressed in these records using mathematical or graphical descriptions. They are also expressed physically with monuments or natural features. Ideally, the recorded and physical expressions should align, however, in practice, this may not occur. This means some boundaries may be physically invisible, lacking accurate documentation, or potentially both. Emerging remote sensing tools and techniques offers great potential. Historically, the measurements used to produce recorded boundary representations were generated from ground-based surveying techniques. The approach was, and remains, entirely appropriate in many circumstances, although it can be timely, costly, and may only capture very limited contextual boundary information. Meanwhile, advances in remote sensing and photogrammetry offer improved measurement speeds, reduced costs, higher image resolutions, and enhanced sampling granularity. Applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), laser scanning, both airborne and terrestrial (LiDAR), radar interferometry, machine learning, and artificial intelligence techniques, all provide examples. Coupled with emergent societal challenges relating to poverty reduction, rapid urbanisation, vertical development, and complex infrastructure management, the contemporary motivation to use these new techniques is high. Fundamentally, they enable more rapid, cost-effective, and tailored approaches to 2D and 3D land data creation, analysis, and maintenance. This Special Issue hosts papers focusing on this intersection of emergent remote sensing tools and techniques, applied to domain of land administration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

Research

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19 pages, 7829 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Discrepancy Analysis for Detecting Candidate Parcels Requiring Update of Land Category in Cadastral Map Using Hyperspectral UAV Images: A Case Study in Jeonju, South Korea

by Seula Park and Ahram Song

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(3), 354; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12030354 - 21 Jan 2020

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5666

Abstract

The non-spatial information of cadastral maps must be repeatedly updated to monitor recent changes in land property and to detect illegal land registrations by tax evaders. Since non-spatial information, such as land category, is usually updated by field-based surveys, it is time-consuming and only a limited area can be updated at a time. Although land categories can be updated by remote sensing techniques, the update is typically performed through manual analysis, namely through a visually interpreted comparison between the newly generated land information and the existing cadastral maps. A cost-effective, fast alternative to the current surveying methods would improve the efficiency of land management. For this purpose, the present study analyzes the discrepancy between the existing cadastral map and the actual land use. Our proposed method operates in two steps. First, an up-to-date land cover map is generated from hyperspectral unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images. These images are effectively classified by a hybrid two- and three-dimensional convolutional neural network. Second, a discrepancy map, which contains the ratio of the area that is being used differently from the registered land use in each parcel, is constructed through a three-stage inconsistency comparison. As a case study, the proposed method was evaluated using hyperspectral UAV images acquired at two sites of Jeonju in South Korea. The overall classification accuracies of six land classes at Sites 1 and 2 were 99.93% and 99.75% and those at Sites 1 and 2 are 39.4% and 34.4%, respectively, which had discrepancy ratios of 50% or higher. Finally, discrepancy maps between the land cover maps and existing cadastral maps were generated and visualized. The method automatically reveals the inconsistent parcels requiring updates of their land category. Although the performance of the proposed method depends on the classification results obtained from UAV imagery, the method allows a flexible modification of the matching criteria between the land categories and land coverage. Therefore, it is generalizable to various cadastral systems and the discrepancy ratios will provide practical information and significantly reduce the time and effort for land monitoring and field surveying. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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27 pages, 8485 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Innovative Remote Sensing Methodologies for Kenyan Land Tenure Mapping

by Mila Koeva, Claudia Stöcker, Sophie Crommelinck, Serene Ho, Malumbo Chipofya, Jan Sahib, Rohan Bennett, Jaap Zevenbergen, George Vosselman, Christiaan Lemmen, Joep Crompvoets, Ine Buntinx, Gordon Wayumba, Robert Wayumba, Peter Ochieng Odwe, George Ted Osewe, Beatrice Chika and Valerie Pattyn

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(2), 273; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12020273 - 14 Jan 2020

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 8526

Abstract

There exists a demand for effective land administration systems that can support the protection of unrecorded land rights, thereby assisting to reduce poverty and support national development—in alignment with target 1.4 of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is estimated that only 30% of the world’s population has documented land rights recorded within a formal land administration system. In response, we developed, adapted, applied, and tested innovative remote sensing methodologies to support land rights mapping, including (1) a unique ontological analysis approach using smart sketch maps (SmartSkeMa); (2) unmanned aerial vehicle application (UAV); and (3) automatic boundary extraction (ABE) techniques, based on the acquired UAV images. To assess the applicability of the remote sensing methodologies several aspects were studied: (1) user needs, (2) the proposed methodologies responses to those needs, and (3) examine broader governance implications related to scaling the suggested approaches. The case location of Kajiado, Kenya is selected. A combination of quantitative and qualitative results resulted from fieldwork and workshops, taking into account both social and technical aspects. The results show that SmartSkeMa was potentially a versatile and community-responsive land data acquisition tool requiring little expertise to be used, UAVs were identified as having a high potential for creating up-to-date base maps able to support the current land administration system, and automatic boundary extraction is an effective method to demarcate physical and visible boundaries compared to traditional methodologies and manual delineation for land tenure mapping activities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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26 pages, 6546 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bridging the Semantic Gap between Land Tenure and EO Data: Conceptual and Methodological Underpinnings for a Geospatially Informed Analysis

by Cheonjae Lee and Walter Timo de Vries

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(2), 255; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12020255 - 10 Jan 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4938

Abstract

When spatial land tenure relations are not available, the only effective alternative data method is to rely on the agricultural census at the regional or national scale, based on household surveys and a participatory mapping at the local scale. However, what if even these are not available, which is typical for conflict-affected countries, administrations suffering from a lack of data and resources, or agencies that produce a sub-standard quality. Would it, under such circumstances, be possible to rely on remotely sensed Earth Observation (EO) data? We hypothesize that it is possible to qualify and quantify certain types of unknown land tenure relations based on EO data. Therefore, this study aims to standardize the identification and categorization of certain objects, environments, and semantics visible in EO data that can (re-)interpret land tenure relations. The context of this study is the opportunity to mine data on North Korean land tenure, which would be needed in case of a Korean (re-)unification. Synthesizing land tenure data in conjunction with EO data would align land administration practices in the respective parts and could also derive reliable land tenure and governance variables. There are still many unanswered questions about workable EO data proxies, which can derive information about land tenure relations. However, this first exploration provides a relevant contribution to bridging the semantic gap between land tenure and EO data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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21 pages, 16401 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Application of Deep Learning for Delineation of Visible Cadastral Boundaries from Remote Sensing Imagery

by Sophie Crommelinck, Mila Koeva, Michael Ying Yang and George Vosselman

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(21), 2505; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11212505 - 25 Oct 2019

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 7304

Abstract

Cadastral boundaries are often demarcated by objects that are visible in remote sensing imagery. Indirect surveying relies on the delineation of visible parcel boundaries from such images. Despite advances in automated detection and localization of objects from images, indirect surveying is rarely automated and relies on manual on-screen delineation. We have previously introduced a boundary delineation workflow, comprising image segmentation, boundary classification and interactive delineation that we applied on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data to delineate roads. In this study, we improve each of these steps. For image segmentation, we remove the need to reduce the image resolution and we limit over-segmentation by reducing the number of segment lines by 80% through filtering. For boundary classification, we show how Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) can be used for boundary line classification, thereby eliminating the previous need for Random Forest (RF) feature generation and thus achieving 71% accuracy. For interactive delineation, we develop additional and more intuitive delineation functionalities that cover more application cases. We test our approach on more varied and larger data sets by applying it to UAV and aerial imagery of 0.02–0.25 m resolution from Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. We show that it is more effective in terms of clicks and time compared to manual delineation for parcels surrounded by visible boundaries. Strongest advantages are obtained for rural scenes delineated from aerial imagery, where the delineation effort per parcel requires 38% less time and 80% fewer clicks compared to manual delineation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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21 pages, 9805 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards 3D Indoor Cadastre Based on Change Detection from Point Clouds

by Mila Koeva, Shayan Nikoohemat, Sander Oude Elberink, Javier Morales, Christiaan Lemmen and Jaap Zevenbergen

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 1972; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11171972 - 21 Aug 2019

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4268

Abstract

3D Cadastre models capture both the complex interrelations between physical objects and their corresponding legal rights, restrictions, and responsibilities. Most of the ongoing research on 3D Cadastre worldwide is focused on interrelations at the level of buildings and infrastructures. So far, the analysis of such interrelations in terms of indoor spaces, considering the time aspect, has not been explored yet. In The Netherlands, there are many examples of changes in the functionality of buildings over time. Tracking these changes is challenging, especially when the geometry of the spaces changes as well; for example, a change in functionality, from administrative to residential use of the space or a change in the geometry when merging two spaces in a building without modifying the functionality. To record the changes, a common practice is to use 2D plans for subdivisions and assign new rights, restrictions, and responsibilities to the changed spaces in a building. In the meantime, with the advances of 3D data collection techniques, the benefits of 3D models in various forms are increasingly being researched. This work explores the opportunities for using 3D point clouds to establish a platform for 3D Cadastre studies in indoor environments. We investigate the changes in time of the geometry of the building that can be automatically detected from point clouds, and how they can be linked with a Land Administration Model (LADM) and included in a 3D spatial database, to update the 3D indoor Cadastre. The results we have obtained are promising. The permanent changes (e.g., walls, rooms) are automatically distinguished from dynamic changes (e.g., human, furniture) and are linked to the space subdivisions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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21 pages, 6850 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards an Underground Utilities 3D Data Model for Land Administration

by Jingya Yan, Siow Wei Jaw, Kean Huat Soon, Andreas Wieser and Gerhard Schrotter

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 1957; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11171957 - 21 Aug 2019

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 8000

Abstract

With the pressure of the increasing density of urban areas, some public infrastructures are moving to the underground to free up space above, such as utility lines, rail lines and roads. In the big data era, the three-dimensional (3D) data can be beneficial to understand the complex urban area. Comparing to spatial data and information of the above ground, we lack the precise and detailed information about underground infrastructures, such as the spatial information of underground infrastructure, the ownership of underground objects and the interdependence of infrastructures in the above and below ground. How can we map reliable 3D underground utility networks and use them in the land administration? First, to explain the importance of this work and find a possible solution, this paper observes the current issues of the existing underground utility database in Singapore. A framework for utility data governance is proposed to manage the work process from the underground utility data capture to data usage. This is the backbone to support the coordination of different roles in the utility data governance and usage. Then, an initial design of the 3D underground utility data model is introduced to describe the 3D geometric and spatial information about underground utility data and connect it to the cadastral parcel for land administration. In the case study, the newly collected data from mobile Ground Penetrating Radar is integrated with the existing utility data for 3D modelling. It is expected to explore the integration of new collected 3D data, the existing 2D data and cadastral information for land administration of underground utilities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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14 pages, 24464 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Deep Fully Convolutional Networks for Cadastral Boundary Detection from UAV Images

by Xue Xia, Claudio Persello and Mila Koeva

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(14), 1725; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11141725 - 20 Jul 2019

Cited by 43 | Viewed by 6658

Abstract

There is a growing demand for cheap and fast cadastral mapping methods to face the challenge of 70% global unregistered land rights. As traditional on-site field surveying is time-consuming and labor intensive, imagery-based cadastral mapping has in recent years been advocated by fit-for-purpose (FFP) land administration. However, owing to the semantic gap between the high-level cadastral boundary concept and low-level visual cues in the imagery, improving the accuracy of automatic boundary delineation remains a major challenge. In this research, we use imageries acquired by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to explore the potential of deep Fully Convolutional Networks (FCNs) for cadastral boundary detection in urban and semi-urban areas. We test the performance of FCNs against other state-of-the-art techniques, including Multi-Resolution Segmentation (MRS) and Globalized Probability of Boundary (gPb) in two case study sites in Rwanda. Experimental results show that FCNs outperformed MRS and gPb in both study areas and achieved an average accuracy of 0.79 in precision, 0.37 in recall and 0.50 in F-score. In conclusion, FCNs are able to effectively extract cadastral boundaries, especially when a large proportion of cadastral boundaries are visible. This automated method could minimize manual digitization and reduce field work, thus facilitating the current cadastral mapping and updating practices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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20 pages, 11621 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Extraction of Visible Boundaries for Cadastral Mapping Based on UAV Imagery

by Bujar Fetai, Krištof Oštir, Mojca Kosmatin Fras and Anka Lisec

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(13), 1510; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11131510 - 26 Jun 2019

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 6607

Abstract

In order to transcend the challenge of accelerating the establishment of cadastres and to efficiently maintain them once established, innovative, and automated cadastral mapping techniques are needed. The focus of the research is on the use of high-resolution optical sensors on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms. More specifically, this study investigates the potential of UAV-based cadastral mapping, where the ENVI feature extraction (FX) module has been used for data processing. The paper describes the workflow, which encompasses image pre-processing, automatic extraction of visible boundaries on the UAV imagery, and data post-processing. It shows that this approach should be applied when the UAV orthoimage is resampled to a larger ground sample distance (GSD). In addition, the findings show that it is important to filter the extracted boundary maps to improve the results. The results of the accuracy assessment showed that almost 80% of the extracted visible boundaries were correct. Based on the automatic extraction method, the proposed workflow has the potential to accelerate and facilitate the creation of cadastral maps, especially for developing countries. In developed countries, the extracted visible boundaries might be used for the revision of existing cadastral maps. However, in both cases, the extracted visible boundaries must be validated by landowners and other beneficiaries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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20 pages, 4450 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Unmanned Aerial System Imagery, Land Data and User Needs: A Socio-Technical Assessment in Rwanda

by Claudia Stöcker, Serene Ho, Placide Nkerabigwi, Cornelia Schmidt, Mila Koeva, Rohan Bennett and Jaap Zevenbergen

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(9), 1035; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11091035 - 1 May 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 8493

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are emerging as a tool for alternative land tenure data acquisition. Even though UAS appear to represent a promising technology, it remains unclear to what extent they match the needs of communities and governments in the land sector. This paper responds to this question by undertaking a socio-technical study in Rwanda, aiming to determine the match between stakeholders’ needs and the characteristics of the UAS data acquisition workflow and its final products as valuable spatial data for land administration and spatial planning. A needs assessment enabled the expression of a range of land information needs across multiple levels and stakeholder sectors. Next to the social study, three different UAS were flown to test not only the quality of data but the possibilities of the use of this technology within the current institutional environment. A priority list of needs for cadastral and non-cadastral information as well as insights into operational challenges and data quality measures of UAS-based data products are presented. It can be concluded that UAS can have a significant contribution to match most of the prioritized needs in Rwanda. However, the results also reveal that structural and capacity conditions currently undermine this potential. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Land Administration)

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