Abstract: Background: Worldwide, modern land administration systems (LAS) are under unprecedented pressure due to rapid urbanization, the expansion of informal settlements, insecurity of tenures, environmental degradation, and inefficient maintenance of cadastral records. Although traditional ground-based methods of cadastral surveying provide legal precision at the millimeter level, they are too costly, require a great deal of labor, and are slow to carry out on a national scale. Objective: This article gives a thorough and systematic summary of the newly developing geospatial technologies—these include photogrammetry using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Terrestrial and Mobile Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), Very High Resolution (VHR) Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS), the integration of 3D/4D Building Information Modeling with Geographic Information Systems (BIM-GIS), and Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchain)—with regard to the modernisation of cadastral surveying and land governance. Literature search and review method: A systematic literature search was carried out in Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed studies that were published between 2015 and 2026. The explicit inclusion criteria were used to select empirical investigations, technical frameworks, and policy evaluations relating to 2D/3D/4D cadastral modelling, fit-for-purpose land administration (FFPLA), and automated spatial data extraction. Key findings: Compared with terrestrial techniques, integrated geospatial pipelines cut the time required for carrying out cadastral surveying in the field by 60 to 75 per cent and achieve horizontal and vertical positional accuracies at the centimetre level, meeting the statutory requirements for cadastral surveys. The use of active 3D sensor fusion (LiDAR-photogrammetry) together with BIM-GIS data integration overcomes the structural drawbacks of traditional 2D planar cadastres by allowing volumetric stratification of legal rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRRs). Moreover, decentralized ledgers incorporated with Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) greatly reduce instances of title corruption, boundary manipulation, and administrative friction. Conclusion: Geospatial technologies form a fundamental basis for attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1, 11, and 15); in order to realise their full potential it is necessary to address the standardisation gaps in 3D data models (for example those in the Land Administration Domain Model ISO 19152), the high computational overheads, and the regulatory obstacles that exist in developing areas.
This paper explores the deployment of a blockchain supported land-registry system in rural Bihar. In light of transparency, fraud mitigation, governance efficiency and digital inclusion, this paper refutes the common assumption that immutability of data results in accurate title. This study employs validated secondary data, from the years 2020-2025, such as the Bihar National Family Health Survey 2019-2021, various official sources of the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme, Bihar land-service portals, and peer-reviewed literature on the intersection of blockchain and land governance. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, approximately 84 percent of surveyed households in Bihar were classified as rural, and a majority of the respondents, 79.4 percent of women and 56.4 percent of men, had never used the Internet. The widening of the access gap was examined in the context of the mobile phone ownership and usage, the financial inclusion of women, as well as the self-reported ownership of a house or land. The evidence-weighted readiness assessment determined that the level of digitization was relatively better, but the level of coordination of institutions, governance of cybersecurity, design of correction mechanisms, and design of user participation mechanisms were relatively poor. This paper proposes a permissioned industry consortium ledger, where sensitive data and documents remain off-chain, and the only data recorded on-chain are the hashes, identifiers, approvals, timestamps and version references of the land parcels. Smart contracts are used to manage the workflows from registration to mutation, but are not used to resolve the issues of contested titles, inheritance, or boundaries. This paper proposes an assisted-access model with a phased implementation approach, a multilingual interface, an appeal mechanism, and gender-disaggregated analysis and evaluation. Rather than fabricating field surveys and administrative performance data, this paper presents a complete primary data collection framework with a detailed statistical analysis plan for empirical assessment.
Land ownership management is a critical administrative process that requires secure record maintenance, transparent ownership verification, and efficient property transfer mechanisms. Conventional land registry systems primarily depend on centralized databases and paper-based documentation, making them susceptible to document forgery, unauthorized modifications, duplicate ownership claims, lengthy verification procedures, and administrative inefficiencies. These limitations often result in ownership disputes, reduced public trust, and delays in property transactions. This paper presents a Blockchain-Enabled Secure Land Registry Framework that leverages blockchain technology to establish a decentralized, transparent, and tamper-resistant platform for land registration and ownership management. The proposed system integrates a React.js-based user interface with a Node.js and Express.js backend, while Firebase Authentication and Firebase Firestore manage user authentication, supporting documents, and application data. Ethereum smart contracts developed using Solidity are employed to securely record land registration, government verification, and ownership transfer transactions on the blockchain, with Ganache serving as the blockchain testing environment. Every approved transaction generates a unique blockchain transaction hash, enabling secure verification, complete traceability, and immutable ownership history. The hybrid architecture combines the scalability of cloud-based data management with the integrity of blockchain technology to ensure efficient record retrieval while preventing unauthorized alterations. The implemented framework demonstrates secure land registration, transparent ownership transfer, simplified government verification, and reliable auditability with minimal operational complexity. The proposed solution provides a scalable and cost-effective approach for modern digital land administration and establishes a strong foundation for future integration with national land registries, electronic identity verification, GIS-based property mapping, and mobile-enabled citizen services.
Rahmat, Agus Surono, Agung Iriantoro, Maslihati Nur Hidayati
The digital transformation of land administration in Indonesia has accelerated the adoption of electronic land certificates as an instrument for improving administrative efficiency, data security, and legal certainty. This study examines the legal status of electronic land certificates within Indonesia’s national land law system and identifies the principal legal, institutional, governance, and technological challenges affecting their implementation. Employing a qualitative descriptive design with a normative juridical approach, the study analyzes the Basic Agrarian Law, the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, regulations issued by the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency (ATR/BPN), and relevant legal and scholarly literature. The findings demonstrate that electronic land certificates have a valid legal foundation and offer significant advantages, including faster administrative procedures, enhanced document authentication through certified electronic signatures, improved protection of land records, and reduced risks of physical loss and document forgery. Nevertheless, their implementation remains constrained by regulatory inconsistencies, institutional capacity gaps, unequal digital infrastructure, cybersecurity risks, data protection concerns, and potential disputes arising from electronic system failures. The study further identifies permissioned blockchain as a potential complementary mechanism for strengthening data integrity, traceability, and transactional transparency, provided that its adoption is supported by appropriate legal and institutional safeguards. This study contributes an integrated legal–institutional–technological framework for understanding electronic land administration and argues that regulatory harmonization, strengthened digital governance, institutional capacity development, and resilient cybersecurity infrastructure are essential to ensuring legal certainty and sustainable protection of land rights in Indonesia.
Yescha Nuradisa Ekarachmi Danandjojo, Samira Ramezani, Johan Woltjer
Multiple land rights holders and layered land rights structures create fundamental challenges for implementing land-based financing methods such as land value capture (LVC). In a decentralized governance system, overlapping land rights and fragmented planning complicate coordination and limit the effectiveness of LVC for financing transport infrastructure development. This study examines how different rights holders contribute to implementing land value capture within a layered land rights and multi-level governance system in Indonesia, using the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project as a case study. In Indonesia’s decentralized system, multiple levels of government apply different planning tools to regulate land use and development, complicating coordination between planning, land rights, and LVC mechanisms. Qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and policy analysis show that overlapping land rights and fragmented regulations create legal and administrative uncertainty. This uncertainty acts as a barrier to cross-governmental coordination and private stakeholder engagement, both of which are necessary for a workable LVC framework. Although a formal LVC framework exists, unclear rules on which rights holders should contribute, combined with complex administrative procedures, limit its practical use. This study contributes to the LVC literature by linking instruments to specific land rights holders and by extending the bundle-of-rights perspective. It explains why LVC remains underutilized in contexts with layered land rights and decentralized governance. The findings highlight the need for policy reforms to clarify contribution obligations, improve coordination across governance levels, and simplify the administrative process.
This article examines whether the use of stablecoins as instruments for financing agribusiness produces civil-liability imputation gaps that are incompatible with traditional dogmatic assumptions. Through a hypothetical-deductive method and a dogmatic-functional approach, the study analyzes stablecoins, tokenized agribusiness financing, decentralized finance, and comparative regulatory frameworks in the European Union, the United States, and Brazil. It argues that the operational decentralization promoted by stablecoins fragments the poles of liability, weakens linear causation, and renders the classical fault paradigm insufficient. The article proposes an interpretive model based on three pillars: layered proportional liability, duties of governance and due diligence, and accountability as an autonomous criterion of imputation. It concludes that civil liability has the dogmatic resources necessary to respond to the tokenized economy, provided that causation, fault, and risk are reconstructed in light of the structural complexity of blockchain-based arrangements.
Belonging in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is negotiated through everyday practices that link land, ancestry, displacement, and local authority. This article examines how ethnicized categories are produced in routine encounters and dispute arenas rather than only through elite politics or episodes of violence. Drawing on comparative ethnography in a periurban setting near Bukavu and a rural setting in Kalehe, based on 72 interviews, observation of 18 dispute and community forums, and a bounded discourse corpus of radio, public speech, and WhatsApp materials, it analyses how people assemble and contest claims to local membership. The study shows that local citizenship is produced through practical regimes of proof in which people must demonstrate credibility via relational anchors, witnesses, documents, and moral narratives about stewardship and suffering. Belonging emerges as graded and situational rather than binary: the same person may be recognized as a church member, tenant, in-law, displaced person, or stranger depending on the arena and resource at stake. Dispute resolution forums institutionalize these claims, while rumor and media infrastructures accelerate boundary hardening or enable restraint. The article contributes to scholarship on boundary making, autochthony, and everyday bordering by showing how local citizenship is assembled through ordinary evidentiary demands and partial forms of recognition.
Land registration is a fundamental function of governance, directly impacting economic development, social stability, and individual wealth security. Yet, despite its critical importance, traditional land registry systems across the world continue to suffer from persistent and costly problems. These include document forgery, unauthorized alterations by corrupt officials, double spending (i.e., selling the same land parcel to multiple buyers), fraudulent title transfers, loss of physical records due to fire or natural disasters, and bureaucratic inefficiency that results in years-long delays for property transfers. According to the World Bank, nearly 70% of the world's population lacks access to reliable land titles, and land disputes account for a significant percentage of civil litigation globally. To address these systemic vulnerabilities, this paper proposes a decentralized land registry system built on blockchain technology. Blockchain—a distributed, immutable, and transparent digital ledger—offers unique properties that directly counter the weaknesses of centralized land registries. The proposed system leverages three key blockchain features: (1) decentralization, which eliminates single points of failure and removes the need for trust in any central authority; (2) smart contracts, which are self-executing agreements that automate land transfers, verify ownership conditions, and release payments only when all predefined criteria are met; and (3) cryptographic hashing, which creates unique digital fingerprints for land documents (such as sale deeds, survey maps, and mutation records), making any tampering instantly detectable.
In recent years,Land registration systems in many countries faces various challenges such as duplicate property, forgeries in documents, ownership conflicts, and unauthorized resale of property. Traditional systems are vulnerable to human errors, tampering of data, corruption which leads to lack of transparency and trust between buyer and seller. To overcome these issues,blockchain technology offers an immutability and transparency land registration system, but blockchain alone fails to ensure ownership integrity during transfer. This paper proposes a Blockchain and Non-Fungible Token (NFT)-based land registration system which ensures unique ownership of property , prevents duplicate registration of land , and reduces fraudulent during transactions. Each land parcel is represented as a unique NFT deployed on a blockchain network, which acts as an blockchain-based land title. Smart contracts enables ownership verification and allow land transfer only by the authorized owner.Land- related documents are stored using the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), ensuring data integrity and decentralized storage. The proposed system ensures security, transparency and tamper proof while allowing ownership transfer. Experimental implementations and evaluation of implementations establish that the system effectively prevents duplicate land titles, fake ownership of property , and resale of already sold land. The solution provides a scalable and reliable approach for modernizing land registry systems using decentralized technologies.
P. Saranya, A. W. Ali, Meesala Shobha Rani, H. Shaheen
The current land transfer system in India is beset with inefficiencies, delays and increased costs due to its reliance on manual processes, extensive paperwork and involvement of multiple intermediaries such as real estate agents and government officials. Discrepancies and verification challenges arise from land records maintained in physical ledgers or decentralized digital formats across various government departments, often leading to fraudulent transactions, disputed ownership claims and unauthorized land sales. The limited transparency and access to land records, further exacerbate corruption and undermine trust in the system. This chapter explores how blockchain technology and smart contracts can revolutionize the land transfer system in India by addressing these inherent challenges. The emergence and growing popularity of blockchain technology is mainly due to the success and influence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum has become the backbone of the decentralized finance sector, further driving its adoption and market perception. Blockchain&s;s decentralized and immutable ledger ensures the authenticity and security of ownership data, while smart contracts automate the entire land transfer process, reducing the need for intermediaries and minimizing human error. The integration of these technologies fosters transparency by providing real-time access to unified land records for all stakeholders, significantly reducing the risk of fraud. Additionally, the streamlined process can greatly reduce the cost and time associated with land transactions. By providing a clear, tamper-proof chain of ownership, blockchain technology also aids in dispute resolution, offering a transformative solution for modernizing land management in India. The proposed work aims to enhance property ownership by creating smart contracts with the terms of the land sale, including the agreed price, property details and conditions for transfer. It verifies the ownership of the seller and checks for any encumbrances or legal issues with the property. This can be done automatically by querying the blockchain ledger. Once the verification is done, the payment can be transferred and the ownership records would be updated on the blockchain ledger,transferring the ownership rights to the buyer and providing a tamper proof and transparent record of the transaction.
Hayat Ullah Abid, Syeda Maria Zafar, Muhammad Arslan, Muhammad Essa
Land ownership is a crucial element of society, providing stability, economic opportuni ties, and social identity. However, managing land ownership in Pakistan is complex and challeng ing, plagued by disputes, fraud, and inefficiencies in land markets. Tokenization, derived from Web 3.0 and blockchain technology, offers a promising solution by digitizing land parcels into tokens stored on a secure and transparent distributed ledger. This paper explores how tokenization can enhance the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of land markets, streamline the verification and transfer of ownership, reduce fraud risks, and improve market liquidity. The study also outlines implementation steps and data requirements for tokenization in Pakistan’s land information sys tem.
This abstract explores the convergence of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), blockchain technology, and AI in creating Geospatial Smart Contracts (GSCs) for real estate. The research demonstrates how GSCs autonomously verify, execute, and enforce property agreements based on trusted spatial data, addressing challenges in title management, regulatory compliance, and transaction efficiency. Through examination of architectural frameworks, case studies, and implementation challenges including oracle integration and AI validation this chapter reveals that GSCs can reduce transaction times by up to 70% and eliminate fraud. Key findings indicate successful implementation requires standardized geospatial data, robust legal frameworks, and cross-jurisdictional cooperation. This chapter provides actionable insights for developers and policymakers seeking to implement location-aware automated agreements.
Vinod Chandra S S, Ali Elrashidi, S Purushotham, C Karthick · 6 authors
Land registration systems in many regions suffer from issues of forgery, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and costly manual intervention. In this paper, we introduce a secured land registration framework based on blockchain technology, where the dynamic social contracts implemented will be used to automate property transactions and will guarantee the integrity of the data, its security and traceability. The architecture of the system combines dynamic smart contracts (complex legal logic) to support a permissioned blockchain (Hyperledger Fabric), and decentralized off-chains storage (IPFS) to handle large documents. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and biometric along with PKI-based digital identity verification supports the secure stakeholder authentication. It supports low-latency, high-throughput operation with the use of Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus which is appropriate to real-time land transfers. Thorough benchmarking has been done in terms of system performance measured by various parameters, such as transaction time, throughput, cost of gas, the latency of the update of ownership, and auditability of smart contracts. Proposed system has also significantly minimized the errors used in both traditional systems and the accuracy in transactions stood at 99.84%. The average ownership transfer time was decreased to 420ms versus 5600ms, and throughput was above 175 TPS, beating both public blockchains and centralized databases. In addition, the system has undergone all of the both significant smart contract security audits, as well as tests of reentrancy, DoS, and access control breaches. The paper shows that the combination of blockchain and adaptive smart contract may achieve the modernization of land registration providing its clients with safe, transparent, and efficient services. The system has a high likelihood of being implemented in the land governance infrastructure where legal compliance, real-time update facility and fraud resistant are king.
In this paper we investigate block chain technology for decentralized land registry applications and discuss how it is possible to change the current mode of property rights management. Centralization means that traditional land registries are by and large inefficient, prone to fraud, lacking in transparency, subject to bureaucratic delays - all of which hamper the ability of buyers and mortgage lenders alike to have certainty over property transactions needed for secure ownership rights. Decentralized Ledgers for land holding a land registry can be built on Blockchain so that it will be secure, efficient and transparent to all stakeholders. This paper considers the key concept of blockchain and decentralization, before detailing how they can be utilized to build decentralized land registry systems through smart contracts and distributed ledgers. The phenomenon is illustrated by an analysis of blockchain benefits while documenting key challenges occurring on the way to implementation adaption of blockchain technology. Highlighted the technical, legal and socio-economic barriers; mainly scalability issues, regulatory uncertainties. The paper ends up on future directions for research and advances featuring the transformative power of blockchain to improve the management of property rights in a global context by proposing less insecure, more transparent and faster land administration systems that empower people and foster economic growth.
For the past decade, blockchain, along with the recent ascent of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have been hailed as revolutionary tools with the power to reshape the global economy, particularly in the context of property rights. In this chapter, drawn in part from the authors’ earlier work, the use of blockchains and NFTs in real property transactions is questioned by interrogating how the existing technologies work against the backdrop of the realities of real property transfers. Moving beyond the hype, the authors explain that a blockchain system would provide few if any benefits to the system of real estate transactions. Yet they think there is indeed a potential use case for blockchains and crypto technology when it comes to property rights. But, it is not in the world of real property – which our existing system has largely shown itself to be sufficient – but rather for intangible property. American law developed to deal with tangible assets, whether personal or real, owing to their historical prominence as primary wealth. But tracking and transferring rights in intangible property has always been underdeveloped. It is here, so we argue, that blockchain technology and NFTs might have the highest utility.
Objectives: This study aimed to analyze the tenurial system of customary land in Java, its deficiency, the accompanying consequences on land access, and the identification of modes of improvement in order to accelerate rural development. Theoretical framework: This study was based on theories of rural development and decentralization, with a specific focus on landless farmers. Method: This study employed qualitative method to analyze the tenurial system of customary land in Java. Data were collected through two steps, first, observations, interviews, and documentaries were conducted to understand the realities of customary land tenure from the descriptive statistics and narratives of local officers. Second, a focus group discussion involving local officers and villagers was held to present the initial findings, formulate a new tenancy system, and analyze the possibilities of its application in village administration. Results and conclusion: Based on the villages in the Grobogan District of Central Java Province, this study showed that land use causes unequal access to landless farmers. The land management methods to finance village development programs are currently irrelevant in the framework of recent decentralization. A system that can benefit landless farmers is contract farming. Implications of research: This study provided evidence-based information for policymakers to improve the use of customary land for landless farmers and an additional reference for rural development in the world. Originality/value: Studies on Indonesian rural development have shown the strategic position of customary lands in Indonesia, especially in Java. However, little is known about the potential of customary lands to achieve sustainable rural development, as this issue is still inadequately addressed in the literature. This led to the implementation of this study, with the objectives of analyzing the tenurial system of customary land in Java, its deficiency, and accompanying consequences on land access, alongside identifying improvement approaches in order to accelerate rural development.
Whether fiscal decentralization will lead to agricultural land “non-grainization” has been widely debated in academic circles. How to improve the efficiency of financial support to agriculture and optimize the grain planting structure by clarifying the relationship between central and local powers and responsibilities is the key to ensuring food security. Based on the panel data of 170 cities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses system moment estimation and a threshold effect model to explore the impact of fiscal decentralization on grain planting structure. The results show that (1) fiscal decentralization has a significant negative effect on the share of food crop cultivation in the major grain-producing areas. (2) Taking the wage level, financial support for agriculture, and land finance as the threshold variables, the test finds that there is a threshold effect of fiscal decentralization on the proportion of food crop cultivation, in which land finance dependence and rises in the wage level are conducive to mitigating the negative effect of fiscal decentralization on the proportion of food crop cultivation. (3) For the three major types of food crop varieties, the negative impact of fiscal decentralization on the share of wheat and corn crop cultivation is subject to the threshold effect of wage level, financial support for agriculture, and land finance, while the impact of fiscal decentralization on the share of rice crop cultivation is not significant. The results of the study have an important guiding role for the government to deepen the reform of the tax-sharing system, improve the long-term mechanism of stable growth of financial support for grain, and optimize the layout of the grain industry.
Abstract In coming decades, Africa's urban populations will expand, and the effects of climate change be more keenly felt. Land policies and institutions will be key for urban dwellers to be able access productive jobs, breathe clean air, and live in decent housing; for entrepreneurs, especially women, to leverage land for productive investment; and for farmers to diversify, insure against shocks, and accumulate capital. Yet, many African land registries perform poorly, command little trust, and have failed to capitalize on opportunities to improve quality, relevance, and outreach via digital interoperability, use of earth observation, and connectivity. Literature highlights scope for regulatory and institutional reforms to (a) expand property taxation and land value capture and to improve urban service delivery, planning, and land use regulations; (b) increase quality and affordability of land services and access to land price and ownership data; (c) guide issuance of rural land use rights to reduce barriers to rural factor markets, including by spatially enabling farmer registries to improve subsidy targeting and effectiveness; and (d) demarcation and transparent decentralized management of public land to attract investment, including in climate finance, without fueling corruption, and to manage disputes before they escalate into ethnic violence.
Using panel data from 275 prefecture-level cities in China spanning from 2003 to 2019, this paper employs the multiperiod difference-in-differences method to empirically analyze the policy effect of land negotiation policy on local governments’ hidden debt. The paper also investigates the influence mechanisms of land finance, budget soft constraints, fiscal decentralization and government competition. The empirical results reveal that: (1) Land negotiations promote the expansion of local governments’ hidden debt, which is counterproductive to the sustainable development of government finances. (2) The impact of land negotiation policy on local government’s hidden debt is transmitted via its effects on land finance. (3) The greater the degree of soft budget constraint and the degree of government competition, the less the expansion effect of land negotiations on the hidden debt of the government. The greater the degree of fiscal decentralization, the greater the expansion effect of land negotiations on the government’s hidden debt. (4) Land negotiation promotes the expansion of hidden debt in eastern China and inhibits it in central China, with no significant effect observed in western China. (5) Cities with larger urban scale and higher economic development levels experience stronger effects from land negotiation policies. Therefore, it is imperative to deepen the land negotiation system further, develop policy indicators and feedback mechanisms tailored to local conditions, and introduce a multiparty supervision system to enhance implementation of the land negotiation system.