Cadastre is coming true in Brazil with SIGEF
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Marra, T.; 2Barbosa, K.; 3Oliveira, E.
1INCRA/MDA Email: thiago.marra@incra.gov.br
2INCRA/MDA Email: kilder.barbosa@incra.gov.br
3MDA Email: eduardo.oliveira@mda.gov.br
Abstract
The implementation of Cadastre in Brazil is a historic challenge. The absence of this instrument represents the impossibility to grant land tenure, capacity to regulate land use and assure social justice. Especially in Amazon, the lack of Cadastre complicates the management of public lands and the regularization of irregular possessions. Beyond that: encourages uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, increases land conflicts and reduces the ability to recognize land rights. In Brazil there are several institutions that use independent "cadastres". This multiplicity, without interoperability, results in information conflicts among governmental agencies. However, in 2001 it was published the 10.267 law, creating the CNIR: National Cadastre of Rural Properties. This law established the georeferencing survey as a mean to produce the fundamental brick of Cadastre: the land parcel. The implementation of 10.267 law, nevertheless, was tricky. The process had excessive documentation and unnecessary steps, based on analog media. This scenery was incompatible with the amount of available government personnel. Besides, the process presented a serious conceptual issue: the land parcel was not adopted as the object of georeferencing. In 2012 there was a deep review, though. New regulations were elaborated to support a full digital process. In 2013, it was implemented SIGEF: Land Management System. SIGEF is a web based platform, designed to perform the concept of CNIR: an effective Cadastre for public and private lands, based on the 10.267 law. Using this tool, georeferencing professionals are able to send the surveyed parcels data directly to INCRA, the governmental agency responsible to maintain the rural cadastre. The automated validation comprehends over 20 checks, and is executed online, usually in seconds, without human intervention. For implementation matters, the validation is divided in two stages. The first one runs in 12 parallel lines, each one analysing the internal coherence of the sent data and comparing it to the actual state of the database. After this first validation is approved, the surveyor is able to confirm the operation. When it occurs, the validations related to database run again in one single serial line. If approved, the data is written in database. The validations comprehend, at a glance: uniqueness of vertices (code and position); positioning precision; compatibility among the positioning method, type of boundary and type of vertex; avoid non nullable data; validity of identification codes; geometric validity; existence of National Registry Code (CNS); overlapping to other parcel(s). The input data follow a Open Document Spreadsheet format template (ODS), from the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF). The numeric values of geospatial coordinates are organized to represent vertices, boundaries and parcels. The vertices positions must be referenced on SIRGAS 2000 datum and contain ellipsoidal height. Numeric data are converted internally to geospatial data format, following Open Geospatial Consortium standards (OGC). To output, the area is calculated on a local projection for each parcel. Distances are obtained from geocentric coordinates. The surveyed raw data is not received. The surveyor is responsible to keep it and make it available if requested. In addition, the web application provides results for stakeholders and for public consultation, generates standardized documents and allows direct and secure access to the land Registry personnel. This enables the possibility to link land parcels data from Cadastre and informations of rights and restrictions from Registry. With this step, Brazil is beginning to build an effective Cadastre. Besides, the technology produced is open source, what eases cooperation to develop cadastral tools for other needs. Despite that, there is a lot to do, like the conciliation with other cadastral systems, and the integration between rural and urban data.