The Government of the Republic of Senegal is in the process of creating a nationwide digital cadaster. The aim of the Communal Land Information System (SIFC) is to digitalize land administration procedures to increase efficiency and enable real-time updates of land data. It represents a major progress in the management of land procedures relating to the allocation, regularization and decommissioning of land in the national domain under the jurisdiction of local authorities. For example, it will reduce the time taken to obtain a title of allocation to the national domain from 18 to 6 months.
GIZ is supporting the development of the SIFC by developing a module for managing Land Use and Allocation Plans (POAS), which will be integrated into the SIFC. The POAS is a territorial planning and development tool, mainly used in rural communes, in which land use and management rules are defined.
To improve cost-efficiency as well as to enable needs-based and context-sensitive implementation, the GIS includes a wide variety of open source tools, such as QGIS, PostgreSQL/PostGIS or Mergin Maps. Additionally, access to regularly updated open data, such as population density, urban development or ESA Sentinel-2 multispectral data has been included. Particularly, the multispectral data can be used to compute the Normalised Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), which can help identify problems in the water flow, triggering unplanned inspections and subsequent interventions. But also planned inspections and regular maintenance are part of the database, paving the way for improved planning of rehabilitation works.
Features of the POAS module
The module will enable the SIFC to display the POAS and other map backgrounds (vector/raster) to overlay cadastral data. It can be used to define the rights, responsibilities, and restrictions (RRR) set out in the POAS and its LADM (Land Administration Domain Model) representation. The tool will also be able to issue alerts regarding compliance with topological and easement rules.
Benefits and challenges
While the benefits of a digital cadaster are numerous, including efficiency, traceability, transparency and, above all, control of land information, the challenges are just as numerous.
The introduction of digital technology and the new requirements that go with it represent major changes for organizations, citizens, and local authorities. A large part of the project's efforts has been devoted to training and raising the awareness of local actors to ensure that change is managed smoothly.