Guidelines to establish a National Land Information System for Bahrain (NLISB)

Abstract

Abstract : Land information includes all information of objects having a permanent place in, on or under the earth's surface, like cadastral parcels, buildings, cables and pipelines, roads, addresses and all other geographic units. Land information will become more and more important because of the growing number of governmental responsibilities, the increasing complexity of society and the advancing role of information in our society. The need to obtain fast, reliable, accurate, up-to-date, and integrated information on land from different organizations has become a challenge for almost any responsible government. To accommodate this need a National Land Information System (NLIS) needs to be established. Each country will have its specific structure and land management problems, thus it will try to find the most suitable solution for its problems. However, there may be common problems to many countries. This research is an attempt to identify land information management problem in selected government organizations in Bahrain and identify the constraints of land information flow between them, and finally give guidelines to develop, implement, and maintain a NLIS for Bahrain. The study begins with the review of the principles of LIS and investigate the need for a NLIS. Models from other developed countries have been studied as existing alternatives for the NLISB. A specific model for NLISB is proposed, based on the current situation analysis of the information infrastructure in Bahrain and the users' requirements. Institutional, technical, legal, social, and economical issues related to the development and maintenance of the NLISB, plus the required changes in the participating organizations (selected organizations) are discussed. The study focuses on the establishment of the NLISB in a federated database environment. The design of such a system requires a basic understanding of Federated Database Systems (FDBS), Multi-Database Systems (MDBS), and land information management.