A Systems Approach to Land Registration and Cadastre

The article is based on the dissertation ‘Systems of Land Registration – Aspects and their Effects’ (Zevenbergen 2002), which applies the systems approach to the fi eld of land registration and cadastre. It focuses on the technical, legal and organisational aspects, and their interrelation, of such systems of land registration. It includes a case study of four countries (the Netherlands, Indonesia, Austria and Ghana). The system of land registration is modelled, both by a static and by a dynamic model. The three main functions from the latter model (adjudication, transfer and subdivision) are elaborated as well. The importance of emergent properties within the systems approach is introduced; the example with regard to land registration being ‘trustworthiness’.