Resolve Ties Method for Re-establishing Fit for Purpose Survey Boundaries

Abstract

Goal and Objectives:

Countries including Uganda adopted Fit-for-Purpose (FFP) Land Administration as a viable approach towards achieving full coverage of land registration aimed at empowering communities to secure land rights and enhance land management. While FFP survey approaches have successfully achieved huge coverage in a reasonable time and at an affordable cost in some districts of Uganda and many other countries including Rwanda, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Indonesia; most reported land disputes on un-titled land which is the target for FFP approach are primarily due to boundaries conflicts. However, there is limited knowledge and no standard method for re-establishing boundaries for land parcels initially surveyed using FFP methods. In this paper, we evaluated different field land surveying procedures, approaches, and methods to come up with an optimal method for re-establishing FFP land boundaries.

Methodology:

The study utilized qualitative and quantitative research methods which involved interviews with relevant stakeholders, experts, and technical persons to gather different perspectives. Primary and secondary data were collected through document analysis, key informants, and in-depth interview tools. Purposive sampling was used to get information from land professionals and university lecturers. A total of 14 in-depth interviews were conducted from land professionals and four institutions handling land administration or geomatics research. The findings from the interviews were used to identify possibles approaches for re-establishing FFP land boundaries. The identified approaches were validated through fieldwork using case studies that highlighted hurdles, positional accuracy, and demonstrated their applicability. The best practices were picked from the different approaches and were triangulated against accurate Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Real Time Kinematic (RTK) observations to develop an optimal method for re-establishing FFP land boundaries that was later validated.

Results:

The results indicated that the use of survey ties was the best method among the existing approaches as it is cost-effective, requires less skills, and provide relatively good accuracy from reference marks. However, to achieve the best results, the study found out that, ties should be integrated with procedures from methods used at initial FFP survey to come up with the optimal Resolve Ties method that incorporates self-resolving technique that reduces variations to achieve FFP accuracy for boundary re-establishment from reference features. The study also developed guidelines for implementing the proposed method with valuable insights into the re-establishment of FFP boundaries for parcels initially surveyed using FFP methods. The developed Resolve Ties method and guidelines can be used to enhance FFP land administration that may ultimately lead to a more efficient and effective land registration system.