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Title
Cadastral Map Use in Uganda
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6fp3j0zg
Author
Bwanika, Daniel
Publication Date
2015
Peer reviewed
eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library
University of California
School for Integrated Urban Planning
Department of
Engineering, Architecture & Surveying
Cadastral Map use in Uganda
Associated Problems
Working Paper
Authors
Daniel Bwanika
Sylivia Nampijja
- October 2014 -
Introduction:
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This paper was prompted by the enormous
difficulty and erroneous ways cadastral use The spectre of disorganised industrialisation in
has occasioned on Uganda. There are Africa, has brought about many forces
numerous cases of cadastral maps not sculpturing the earth crust in so many different
showing what they should represent, for and an unimaginable ways than in the world
example land value and ownership. before ours. There are expansive open and
deep mines, oil and gas exploitation leaving
behind empty wells underground, urbanisation
An unregulated land use specifically in urban
and its appended enormous excavation and
regions and use of whatever parcel of land for
construction industry for the roads, building
monetary gains has resulted into extensive
sites etc., all contribute to many more ways in
slum developed termed in Uganda as the rich
Geomorphological changes. Use of cadastral
mans slums. This is as a result of clear and
maps on sheets, rather than comprehensive
major townscape plans, build and land use
cartographical maps results into inadequate
aspects.
and inexact data generation.
The above coupled with lack of base maps and In Kampala City, where most of the information
a covering spatial information system data in this article is being generated, the relief
base, it is almost impossible to physically plan being hilly has meant that generation of base
in Uganda. maps last carried out in 1950s and 1960s has
left a huge gap in the application of survey
Poorly trained surveyors and cartographers data. As an example of gravel roads that
technicians have serious ethical problems dominate the city infrastructure, under
most probably as a result of lack of deeper torrential tropical rains, have shifted several
understanding of what they are doing. meters as a result of heavy soil erosion. Yet
planning authorities in the country under a veil
There are problems of land demarcation issues of lack of cartographic data have went ahead
based on fraudulent survey data sheets and to construct roads, houses, and carry out land
most oftentimes difficult to interpret. As a result demarcation without propel maps showing for
there are cadastral which can’t be set to march example utility and infrastructure placement.
the expected cartographic data.
This is a typical African phenomenon,
Cadastral surveying is the demarcation of the shrouded into mental mapping associated with
land for the purpose of defining the parcels of communal land parcelling. Coupled with huge
land for registration in a land registry. It is used influx of rural population into equally unplanned
to define land for ownership, should the owner towns all over the East and Central African
wish to sell off part of that land, the cadastral region and appended social problems thus far
surveyor is again called in to partition the land generated, this calls for agent action.
to be sold. Furthermore the cadastral
surveyors are required whenever a boundary With huge forests some completely decimated
beacon must to be found or replaced. Thus far and food resource consumption, vast tracts of
Cadastral maps are simply representation of land is left bare to the elements and soils are
economic and financial values of a physical eroded leaving behind deep gullies and eroded
geometric dimension over land. This is holes into the earth crust. What is happening in
irrespective of utility and infrastructure lay out. our time is not quantifiable in geologic terms.
Cartographic maps Methodologically this paper is based on
interaction with students and graduates of
Cartographic methodology is a continuous surveying in Uganda. Further description of
process as the evolution of the earth crust also problem is derived from analysis of cadastral
continues to be formed and transformed. prints generated by different survey agencies
Geologically the earth is not statistic. and land administration offices.
Geomorphological processes mount
transforms, pressure, and changes the Problem of analysis in this article is based on
morphological structures. Hills are denuded the social conflicts that land subdivisions and
and become slopes, flat plains or plateau. court of law arbitration in land subdivision
Plateaus are likewise worked out and they cases. The problems can be subdivided into
become valleys or desert region. The elements the following categories:
are simply too many to imagine that spatially
the earth can remain the same for quite a very i. Land fragmentation
long geological time.
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ii. Incomplete land information violation of the law by the surveyor since he or
system for public land for roads, she is parcelling out land which is public and
forests, wetlands and water moreover in clear violation of the wetland laws
bodies. of Uganda as per the national environment
iii. Land fraud and social conflicts a laws of Uganda. There are markings on the
result of boundary disputes cadastre showing a wetland though and how
iv. Individual against native exact the delineation is a matter of guess work
(communal) rights since the plot is no based or coordinate
v. Cultural deviation system.
vi. Incompetent surveyors
vii. Surveyors’ mis-education Some of the plots can’t be reached due to lack
viii. Population growth vis vi land sub – of infrastructure and utility planning like; sewer
division lines, water and transport network.
ix. Lack of National Surveying and
mapping agencies. Transport and Infrastructure Planning
The cadastral above informs the reader that
there is an upcoming residential area.
Curiously though the cadastre does not bother
to show, residential streets: arterial, sub-
arterial, distributor, collector, access,
pedestrian or cycle routes.
This will right away shows that the designer of
this plot of land does not either use any spatial
planning tools and skills or creative skills in site
planning hence lack of prior investigation of the
entire land parcel.
Embedding cadastral into cartographic
maps
Embedding cadastral into cartographic maps
could be a quicker solution to this typically
Africas’ problem for example;
Plate 1
a. A multi-layered digital cadastral map
Spatial Planning – Estates
has quite different characteristics to
cadastral plots designed to support a
In plate 1 above, problems associated to
land market or land registration
rudimentary surveying, have specifically been
system.
illuminated in what Ugandans call estates
development. There is no doubt that this land
b. There is need to bring the cadastral
has become a slum. This too goes against
map onto the same coordinate and
common wisdom that slums are developed by
mapping system as large scale
poor people rather than violation of the law by
topographic maps, thereby facilitating
surveyors who lack planning skills. Large
LIS/GIS applications.
parcels of land normally mailo1 land has been
bought and subdivided, in the most grotesque
manner as seen from above. c. Where ever possible cadastral
boundaries will be shifted slightly to
It can clearly been seen from the sheet above agree with topographic data. As a
that there is no clear delineation of land, result the cadastral plots can be
whether public or private. The boundaries of related to the topographic map series
land extend to what appears to be a wetland thereby facilitating LIS/GIS,
which by Uganda 1900 agreement falls under particularly if the maps are digital.
pubic lands. This is a clear and blatant
d. Charting or index maps are a very
1
common form of cadastral map and
Uganda has three land tenure systems; are found historically in Australia, but
freehold, leasehold, mailo and communal also in North America and many other
land tenure systems.
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countries. Charting or index maps are maps having a high degree of
a very common form of cadastral map technical detail (not contours).
and are found historically in Australia, Furthermore the system should be
but also in North America and many complete and up to-date as I have
other countries. These cadastral shown in the introduction.
surveys are not based on a national
coordinate system. l. A cadastral map designed for land
registration purposes has important
e. Typical cadastral surveys are not characteristics which differ from a
based on a national coordinate cadastral map designed for a more
system. multi-purpose role. Institutional,
management and financial issues are
f. "Legally" cadastral maps should be obvious conflict areas as a result.
underpinned by a "technical" map
showing all the coordinates and Cadastral at work
dimensions.
g. Cadastral maps are usually influenced
more by the requirements of land
markets and land registration rather
than any other spatial planning use.
h. "Land Markets" recognise that a
cadastral system designed purely for
land markets does not need anything
more than an approximate index map
to chart cadastral survey plans – this
results most often into boundary
conflicts
i. Multi-purpose digital cadastral map
has quite different characteristics to a
cadastral map designed to support a
land market or land registration
system. Plate 2
j. Utilities providing water, sewerage and In the above plate small plots of land have
drainage systems require accurate been parcelled out in no relation to either
maps since the lines are usually infrastructure or utility system. The surveyor is
shown in an absolute sense in space both the infrastructure and physical planner by
while other systems such as the nature of would be roads shown
telephone or cable TV systems often stochastically placed. Whether the
use more diagrammatic maps with undersigned appreciated this land spatial
cables related to boundaries by planning in relation to land use, plan and road
approximate offsets. The systems network, is a matter of guess work.
requiring accurate maps locate their
lines either absolutely by coordinates In surveying, once the positions of the
or relative to a physical feature or a boundaries have been marked and recorded,
parcel boundary or in combination. the cadastral surveyor and the conveyancer
work together to record ownership in public
k. Urban areas or cities require a register. This ensures that the rights of the
complete record of all land parcels to owner can be upheld against false claims and
manage the land use, infrastructure all persons may know who owns what.
and assets, and to control
development in their areas of As explained that surveying in Uganda as
responsibility. These requirements elsewhere in the country has been so
demand a relatively high accuracy for degraded, heightened land conflicts is an
individual parcels. This is because the explanation to a dysfunction system rather
cadastral maps must be able to than a common problem associated to and
overlay the large scale topographic pressure.
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To be noted is very low construction and
housing level in most of Africa as majority
population are still located in rural areas.
Further still there are very low levels of
systematic urbanisation levels in Africa.
Rights over land
The basic rights over land are;
i) Ownership: this is the most
important relationship between a
person and land. It gives the
owner the greatest rights over land
including the rights to: use it to its
full potential, dispose of it or sell it,
use it as security for a loan.
ii) Lease: this is a contract whereby
land is let to or hired by a person Plate 3
other than the owner for a
specified period of time.
iii) Sub- surface rights: rights to any Control data
minerals on a property may be
included in the ownership of the Some control data obtained from the
property, or may be completely department of survey and mapping does not
separated from ownership of the tally with what is on ground. Coordinates do
land. not fall in the surveyor’s places of expectation.
This is more pronounced in Mubende,
Problems associated with cadastral Mukono etc...
surveying.
Final Remarks
Cadastral prints
- Measurements on cadastral prints do There is need for re training of surveyors.
not tally with the distances taken on Besides professional and expert skills, there
ground. This is so because are ethical issues associated with land
cartographers plot poorly the cadastral parcelling.
maps.
- Areas indicated on the prints do not Uganda lacks a spatial infrastructure network
match with that on ground. Some land which should be put in place at the earliest.
is either more or less than that This calls for production of base maps for the
indicated on the maps. entire country starting with densely populated
areas and high productive agricultural regions.
And lastly every there will be need to change
the Local Government Act 1997 so that Town
and Country 1964 take precedence over is of
land management in both urbanised and rural
areas. It should be noted that infrastructure
and utility planning should proceed land
demarcation for efficient service delivery, land,
environmental law regulation and mitigation of
social conflicts.
References
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Black John Urban Transport Planning –
Theory and Practice 1981 Croom Helm
London
Jo Henssen BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE
MAIN CADASTRAL SYSTEMS
IN THE WORLD Joint European Conference
and Exhibition on Geographical Information in
The Hague, The Netherlands, March 26-31,
1995.
Local Government Act 1997
Guiseppe Gentili Integration of Carthographic
and Cadastral data in a common information
system IAPRS, Vol. 32 part 4 GIS – between
Visions and Applications Stuttgart 1998
Town and Country 1964
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