Land titling firm saves time and money creating a cadastral system for St. Kitts
Around seventy percent of the world’s property is unregistered, causing land insecurity and poverty. Creating a system to document and formalize land ownership is the only way to ensure that the land is developed sustainably into the future. Medici Land Governance works in partnership with governments at the national, state and city level to provide low-cost and innovative land-titling solutions that help people secure property rights.
“We map areas to get the underlying data to be used for enumeration, property valuation, and cadastral systems,” said Ben White, GIS Engineer at Medici Land Governance. “We can then build a portal for countries or places to see the data and draw parcel boundaries in it so there’s a record for that property.”
White and a team of three other specialists recently mapped the island of St. Kitts, which is one of two Caribbean islands making up the nation-state of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. The island measures around 168 km2 (65 mi2), and the team mapped 104 km2 (40 mi2) of it with WingtraOne in just 28 days / 65 hours of flight time—overcoming volcanic terrain and windy conditions.
- Cadastral maps
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
It’s stunning really. The WingtraOne data is very accurate. And with all the new imagery you can see all the different use cases for it, like city planning, tracking new and degraded roadways, and farming certain areas.
Ben White
GIS Engineer at Medici Land Governance
Drone data, poverty alleviation and environmental protection
Drone mapping instead of hiring costly airplane surveys is opening opportunities to make more high-accuracy maps of more of the world. In particular, WingtraOne’s ability to capture large amounts of high-accuracy data in short periods of time across challenging terrain makes it a cost-effective tool in the push to document land rights.
“With WingtraOne, we could fly higher because of the 42 MP camera,” White said. “We could fly at 700 feet (213 meters) above ground and cover a large area in a 45 minute flight. We budgeted 40 days to map what we needed and achieve it in 28.”
A land registry based on high-accuracy location data can help people move out of poverty and enjoy a higher quality of living. First of all, owned property can be taxed in order to fund and expand utilities and services. Drone data can back up the exact area parameters of properties. Environmental conditions improve as well, because if people have proof that they own land, they’re more likely to make sustainable developments and increase investments in land.
“The sense of owning one’s property and having accurate, tamper-proof records of that ownership is invaluable. It provides financial, social and psychological security,” White said. “It’s also really important in terms of having a sense of ‘home’ and a sense of place during international crises like this pandemic.”
Land titling improves socio-economic status and impacts the social determinants of health. Medici Land Governance is a cutting-edge company that offers land registry systems at a lower cost. And WingtraOne now plays a major role in making this possible.
Ben White
GIS Engineer at Medici Land Governance
