IN A CONTEXT of rapid urbanization in the South, this report argues that land is a basic resource for urban development. For efficient land management, information on its location, use and tenure is necessary. Land information systems (LIS) are designed to accelerate this process and the report aims to give an overview of appropriate and practical applications of LIS in the South. Case studies are also given to provide references and orientation for assessing the conditions and suitability for establishing LIS. The target readership of the report is practitioners in the field of urban development.

Part I gives an overview of the development of LIS. The first chapter explains the concept of LIS, how it has evolved since the 1970s and its potential value for the levying of taxes, for the legalization of tenure, for physical planning and for the management of infrastructure and the environment. Chapter 2 provides a brief summary of five selected cases studies of a range of LIS in Latin America and Africa and the third chapter gives conclusions and recommendations on the basis of the case studies.

Part II gives detailed accounts of the five LIS case studies. The first is a simple cadastre for small municipalities in Paraguay, with the system being used mainly for the collection of municipal taxes and being regularly updated using the SIGMA computer programme. From Ecuador comes the example of an automated municipal information system. It was developed and tested in 1993 to increase municipal revenues and it is now being implemented more widely. The main achievements of a database for the legalization of tenure in El Salvador are shown to be the legalization and registration of tenure for social groups which had previously been denied land, such as squatters. In Nicaragua, a property tax cadastre was recently set up at municipal level, involving survey and cadastral mapping and the establishment of an alphanumeric database. The final case study, from Benin, is of an urban land register and address system focusing on the improvement of land-related revenues and with the long-term aim of supporting other tasks in urban land management.