Land Administration and Cadastral Trends: The Impact of the Changing Humankind-Land Relationship and Major Global Drivers

This paper is the first part of a two-part series that overviews past trends in the dynamic humankind-land relationship and considers what current trends and global drivers could mean for future land administration and cadastral systems. The aim of this paper is to discuss some of the current forces of change on the humankind/land relationship and why an increasingly integrated approach to land administration and management is imperative. An overview of the past forces of change on land administration is discussed to demonstrate the dynamic nature of the humankind/land relationship. Particular attention is given to major global drivers such as sustainable development, globalization, economic reform and the information technology revolution. The potential impact of these current forces (particularly sustainable development), on the institutional, legal, political and technological frameworks of a nation, is discussed. New Zealand, which has undergone considerable economic and legislative reforms since the mid-1980s, is used as an illustration of trends and the imperative for a more integrated approach to land administration across those frameworks.