News in 2019
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The Annual Meeting of FIG Commission 7 was held in Seoul, Korea, for 5 days from August 5th to 9th. More than 100 people from 23 countries participated in the event sharing their knowledge and experience in the field of cadaster, land administration and geospatial information.
LX, the Korean public entity affiliated with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MoLIT), organized the 2019 Commission’s Annual Meeting in Seoul (Korea). LX’s main functions include land surveying, and administration of geospatial information, global projects, research and education.
The Annual Meeting was impeccably organized, and every need of
participants was met with the generous and warm hosting spirit of the
Koreans. The result was an outstanding annual meeting with high-quality
technical presentations, great friendly discussions and a lot of
camaraderie among Commission 7 delegates.
During the meeting, we had the honour of the active participation of
high-level members of LX, and also Mr Oumar Sylla (GLTN Unit Leader at
the United Nations), Dr Orhan Ercan (Vice president of FIG) and Ms
Evamaria Uribe (National Director of the Cadastre and Mapping Agency of
Colombia, IGAC).
The Annual Meeting was composed of 2 days of seminars, 1 day to visit the Smart Geospatial Expo, 1 day for the annual meeting and the last day with a technical tour.
Day 1 started with the welcoming speeches from FIG Commission 7 Chair Daniel Paez, FIG Vice President Orhan Ercan, Director General of MoLIT Woo-Jun Sohn, CEO of LX Chang-hak Choi, and UN-GLTN leader Oumar Sylla. Then came an introduction of Korean Cadaster followed by the sharing of surveyor experiences from Korea, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Russia, among others. To finish the first day, there was a welcoming dinner with a Korean percussion performance, NANTA.
Day 2 was the main seminar with 17 presentations distributed in 3 sessions: (Session 1) Smart City and Digital Twin, (Session 2) Cadaster and Land Administration, and (Session 3) Cadaster 4.0. Through the seminar, we shared current contexts, challenges and methodologies in the sector of Smart Cities, Digital Twin, Land Administration, Land Information, Land Registration, Fit-for-Purpose, and PPP, among others.
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In Day 3, all the FIG participants moved to the Smart Geospatial Expo 2019 at COEX, Seoul, to see the current technologies Korea is promoting to improve and develop the geospatial industry and create an environment where all countries can share their knowledge and experience for future cooperation and projects. The participation of FIG members to the Expo was a good opportunity to share the role of the FIG and surveyors more generally with other countries, and to emphasize the importance of cadaster and land management.
Day 4 involved country reports from Turkey,
Colombia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, Germany and so on, to
enhance understanding of local situations in specific countries and how
they compare to one another.
On the last day the participants had a technical tour to the DMZ
(Demilitarized Zone) to experience the history and the current situation
of the divided two Koreas.
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During the Annual Meeting in Korea, a very informative seminar was held on key challenges and opportunities in land administration with vivid discussions during reports presented by countries. This was possible thanks to the passion and support of FIG members and all event participants.
Urbanization is accelerating and expanding around the world; it is important to improve technology to manage geospatial information, so our “smart cities” are platforms that include policies, institutions, technology and services that improve productivity and living standards for all. Ideally geospatial technologies will increase service access and productivity in rural areas. In urban areas, geospatial technologies such as Digital Twin can protect local environmental and aesthetic values.
During
the meeting, I was pleased to see Korean LX taking a leadership role in
developing and implementing the concept of a Digital Twin involving both
digital and physical infrastructure to improve livability in rural and
urban areas.
As Commission Chair, I am pleased that we are maintaining our role as a discussion platform for ideas, technologies, trends and challenges. SDGs are the Commission’s compass and key concepts of interest to the Commission are Fit-for-Purpose land administration, and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) combined with up-to-date technologies.
Our message that land tenure improvement is needed and these improvements are a powerful vehicle to achieve many SDGs is getting to decision-makers around the world. However, FIG Commission 7 cannot slow down. We need to keep finding solutions to land problems and accelerate their implementation. We cannot ignore that millions of people living in poverty and affected by the impacts of the climate crisis need our help.
To learn more about the developments at the FIG Commission 7 Annual
Meeting, Dr Rohan Bennet did a wonderful Wrap-Up that you can watch in
the following video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NgNgUHnYRs&t
Please visit the event website for the presentations and pictures
taken during the event.
https://www.com7figseoul.com/
Our next meeting will be in FIG 2020 Working Week in Amsterdam:
www.fig.net/fig2020
and then our 2020 annual meeting later in Switzerland (events not to
miss!).
Daniel Paez, PhD
Chair FIG Commission 7
3 September 2019
