INTRODUCTION

For many decades, traditional cadastral systems have tended to enjoy a reputation for reliability, well defined processes, and a well recognized guarantee of security of private land ownership. Tremendous technological progress, social change, globalization, and the increasing interconnection of business relations with their legal and environmental consequences, however, have put a strain on the traditional systems. They cannot adapt to all the new developments. An obvious indication of this is the many reforms that cadastral systems are going through.

The need for reform is the main reason why Commission 7 of FIG is looking very carefully at the developments in this field and why in 1994 it set up a working group to follow the trends and develop visions. The working group first formulated a questionnaire to get a trend analysis. Many important suggestions came out of this questionnaire, and six statements were devised. The term 'Cadastre 2014' was coined and used in relation to the six statements.

At the annual FIG meeting in 1995 in Delft, a one-day seminar about 'Modern Cadastres and Cadastral Innovations' was organized where further trends were detected. The trends arising from the first questionnaire of the working group were presented, and the six basic statements on Cadastre 2014 were discussed.

During the Budapest meeting in 1996, the working group discussed the summary of the first questionnaire and initiated a second one, which concentrated more on the cost recovery aspects and on the privatization of the cadastral systems. The six statements on Cadastre 2014 were again discussed and verified. At the Penang meeting in 1997 the working group dealt with the results of the second questionnaire and approved the contents of the final report.

The major results of the work of the last four years can be summarized as follows:

The cadastral systems in developed countries attempt to be too perfect. This perfectionism results in weighty procedures and slow and expensive services.
In consequence, one aim of cadastral reform projects is to improve services of the cadastral systems.
The automation of cadastral systems is widely seen as an appropriate tool to improve the performance of cadastral systems. Automation, however, of the traditional perfectible systems without re-engineering the procedure aspects may result in performance failure.
The innovation of cadastral systems tends to be in the direction that cadastral systems will be embedded in land information systems.
Cost recovery and privatization issues are increasingly important within the context of cadastres.
'Cadastre 2014' will be a complete documentation of public and private rights and restrictions for land owners and land users. It will be embedded in a broader land information system, fully co-ordinated and automated, without separation of land registration and cadastral mapping. It will remain a public task, although operational work will be done by private organizations, and it will have a 100% cost recovery.
'Cadastre 2014' can provide optimal services to the different societies at a lower cost than today's systems. It will not only concentrate on private rights, but increasingly on public rights and restrictions as well.

Based on the questionnaire, Chapter 1 gives an overview of the existing cadastral systems, and Chapter 2 of the on-going reform projects and trends in the cadastral field. The six statements and the vision for a Cadastre 2014 are presented in Chapter 3, while the justifications for it are given in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 suggests what role the surveyor should be playing in Cadastre 2014. Chapter 6 makes recommendations about what surveyors should do to play an important role, and what FIG and national member organizations can contribute to Cadastre 2014.