FIG Foundation - Building a Sustainable Future

FIG Foundation Academic Research Grant 2024-2025 awarded to Abdullah Kara  

The FIG LADM Project is an important step towards the finalisation of ISO Standards of LADM

 

The project manager of the FIG LADM Project is Abdullah Kara, assistant professor at Gebze Technical University in Turkey.


Content:

What is LADM?

The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) is an internationally recognised ISO standard (ISO 19152) that provides and supports responsible innovation and partnerships, for effective land administration. The LADM aligns the data model with a standardised global vocabulary for land administration. As an international standard it can stimulate the development of software applications and may accelerate the implementation of land administration systems that support sustainability objectives. The Land Administration Domain Model is developed at the initiative of FIG, as part of the FIG Standards Network as well as Commissions 3 and 7.

 

LADM Edition I (2002-2012) - adopted by over 50 countries

LADM Edition I was published in 2012 with a focus on land registration. In the photo below is the 2012 Editorial Committee of the ISO 19152 (photo: Bjørnhild Sæterøy). The 1 November 2012 milestone was mentioned in this FIG news item when the ISO standard for the 'Land Administration Domain Model (LADM)' was approved as an official International ISO Standard. On pages 2-5 in this full progress report, you can read more about the LADM Edition I work 2002-2012.

 

LADM Edition II (2017-2025)

LADM Edition II is the revised version of the LADM Edition I.

In 2017, after widespread international adoption and feedback from users, including national mapping agencies, academic institutions, and international organizations, it was clear that a revision was needed, for several reasons:

  • Broad adoption: Over 40 countries developed national LADM profiles.
  • Demand from the land administration community: Users requested support for marine georegulation, valuation and spatial planning data as well as refined survey model.
  • UN-GGIM support: In 2017, the UN-GGIM Expert Group concluded that a revision was necessary to improve tenure security and land administration coverage.
  • ISO review: A formal review process began in 2018, leading to the decision to redesign LADM as a multipart standard.

The work on LADM Edition II was initiated in 2017 at a UN-GGIM meeting in Delft, the Netherlands. From 2017-2025, LADM Edition II workshops have been held in the Netherlands, Croatia, Malaysia, Sweden, and Brazil [1, 2].  

Goals

The goals of LADM Edition II are to:

  1. refine the existing content and extend the scope of Edition I to include land value, land use and land development.
  2. integrate diverse land administration functions and ensure interoperability across institutional domains.
  3. provide a foundation for the development of digital land administration ecosystems, improve the quality and comparability of land-related data, and support international efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 15 (Life on Land).
  4. include, but are not limited to, supporting tenure security, supporting access to credit, enabling fair taxation, contributing to peace building and security, promoting social justice, strengthening disaster management, improving resource management, fostering smart and resilient societies, supporting sustainable land use, protecting the environment, enabling slum upgrading, improving access to housing, enhancing city management, and ensuring access to basic infrastructure.

The key differences between LADM Edition I and II are:

LADM Edition I (2012) LADM Edition II (2025)
Single unified standard Multipart standard with six distinct parts
Focused on basic land administration Includes marine georegulation, valuation, spatial planning, and implementation aspects
Limited semantic richness Enhanced semantic modeling and code lists
One NWIP (New Work Item Proposal) Separate NWIPs for each part of the standard
Less modular Modular structure allows tailored implementation

 

Edition II is divided into 5 parts:

 

As of June 2025, the progress of the project is described in a full progress report, in which status of each part of LADM Edition II is outlined:

Each part is developed as a separate ISO standard, allowing for more focused and flexible use.

 

Two FIG publications so far as a result of the LADM project

In April 2025, two publications on Edition II were published: 1) An overview 2) An extended version:

 

 

The LADM project is led by Abdullah Kara and supervised by Peter van Oosterom and Christiaan Lemmen.

Relevant links:

 

FIG Office and Abdullah Kara

Updated 28 November 2025