Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency
“Providing insight into quality of data is very important. Users have to know to what extent they can rely on data – especially when data is used for making policy or decisions that impact on people’s lives.”
Frank Tierolff
Chair, Executive Board Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency, The Netherlands
Since its release as open data, The Netherlands’ Cadastral Map has seen a tenfold increase in users.
Published by the Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster), it shows the location of parcels and boundaries to provide a graphic representation that is used mainly for orientation. Whilst professional users are aware of the map’s purpose, the assumption among open data users is that it can be used for exact measurements. This is not the case as only surveyors can provide information about exact measurements.
To make clear to everybody that the Cadastral Map is just for orientation purposes, Kadaster has developed a new feature: labels of quality for each represented boundary. These labels provide insight into the accuracy of the boundaries that are visualised on the Cadastral Map, and indicate their quality compared to actual boundaries in the terrain.
The new feature was developed by combining available data with labels automatically assigned by means of an algorithm.
The open dataset is published on the website for Public Services on the Map (www.pdok.nl) and contains views and downloads.
Benefits
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Enables understanding of quality of Cadastral Map.
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Provides an insight into accuracy of boundaries as shown on the Cadastral Map.
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Saves users time and money if quality label is sufficient for their purposes and no further research is required.
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Reduces potential risks in decision-making as the quality is determined by Kadaster, the data owner, rather than by users collecting and combing data themselves.