What is it about?
The cadastre is a critical infrastructure that delivers data to other computer systems. Errors in the cadastral register propagate further. Sometimes such errors can have serious consequences. Norway's current cadastre, which was established in 2010, has varying data quality because it is based on data that has been collected in different time periods, with varying methods and for different purposes. The absence of a common, national cadastral system distinguished Norway from many other countries with which it is natural to compare Norway.
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Why is it important?
Since its establishment in 1773, the Norwegian Mapping Authority has strived for the best possible accuracy and precision in the surveying and mapping work. The national assembly Stortinget's decision in 1815 to discontinue the Mapping Authority’s financial surveys was a decisive moment and probably an important explanation for why it would take almost 200 years before Norway got a national cadastre. The Land Consolidation Act of 1857 and establishment of the Land Consolidation Service in 1859 established new rules of the game in rural areas and a player with the right to carry out law-changing land consolidation transactions. Agriculture and other stakeholders reaped the fruits of these measures. However, several amendments of the Land Consolidation Acts relaxed the requirements for surveying and mapping of land consolidation cases. Introduction of city-specific building laws in the 1800s and the Building Act of 1924 led to the cities having a different development path for surveying, mapping and cadastral keeping than in the rural areas.
Perspectives
Both the city authorities, the credit institutions and the landowners in the cities benefited from surveying, mapping and cadastral registration of the properties in the cities, including in the form of defined ownership rights and facilitation of urban planning, regulation, mortgage security and taxation. In the rural areas, until the Division of Land Act of 1978 there was no legal basis for requirements for documentation and spatial delimitation for surveying. The absence of a common, national cadastral system distinguished Norway from many other countries with which it is natural to compare Norway and is almost a textbook example of institutionalisation and path dependence.
Associate professor Knut Boge
Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Da Statens kartverk møtte jordskifteretten, Kart og plan, December 2021, Scandinavian University Press / Universitetsforlaget AS,
DOI: 10.18261/issn.2535-6003-2021-03-04-08.
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