The framework of land information system in Saudi Arabia

The framework of land information system in Saudi Arabia

 Since the adoption of land use management information systems and land information systems in Saudi Arabia over 30 years ago. The country has witnessed significant and notable improvements in terms of land use and land management since the government started to incorporate the various land monitoring and management techniques in land administration in 1983. The framework of these two crucial land administrative techniques has eminently enhanced the use of land, specifically in Makkah and Al-Taif regions, between 1987 to 2014. The successful application on the framework implementation of the land use management information system was boosted by the availability of stable land information and the use of modern technologies such as Landsat images systems and robust Geo-informatics systems GIS.

Land use management information system implementation in the Arabian land management system was timely. It was fundamental in addressing the global environmental land use challenges such as illegal deforestation, overexploitation of vegetation, and unnecessary clearance of land cover posing adverse climatic conditions in the regions of such illegal activities. Through close remote monitoring on how land and vegetation cover are used within the country, enable the authorities to realize the danger zones hence deploy appropriate measures to safeguard land integrity, therefore promoting land value and sustainability. In 1984, Geo-informatics statistics showed that Saudi Arabian was 70% predominantly desert. Currently, the narrative has changed as Saudi Arabia is considered as the top country that has successfully implemented land management and administrative techniques (LIS/LUMIS) to boost its settlement expansion in the entire Middle East. The success of the land use management system is supported by tremendous environmental changes such as land cover and climatic systems, landscape ecology, and improved hydrological processes.

Land use and management information systems provide a multi-temporal data systems that are of 9importance in better interpretation and understanding of the complex land cover and land use patterns. The LUMIS provides up to date information about land cover changes through the use of improved quality image extraction systems by repetitively capturing land mages by use of satellite, hence providing valuable real-time information and assistance to farmers and land administrators. One the other hand land information system has enhanced a provided a reliable technical foundation that supports land-use decision making across a wider range application on natural resources such as agronomic, engineering, environmental and public goods within Saudi Arabia. Lis provides a framework that allows a combination of land surface models, resources, and computing tools with relevant data to enable a clear understanding of regional land use. In its basics, LIS constitutes a robust respiratory database of relevant georeferenced resources and materials such as meteorological observations, satellite imagery, and legacy mapping systems.

In Saudi Arabia, there is perfect integration between land information systems, geographic information systems, and land use and management information systems, thus offering elaborate and explicit information about land use and land cover. GIS is crucial in LIS as it offers the technological work frame for the development of land use information and the basis for interpreting remote sensing imagery. However, the GIS systems also cannot operate on its own since the development of real-time data on any piece of land, and it depends on the information obtained and analyzed by the LIS department. Land information systems give a foundation for a varied range of thematic environmental applications with a given geographical context. The country’s agricultural sector has advanced in the last decade due to the application of LUMIS and LIS in combination with GIS. These three systems use a varied range of geoprocessing and modeling techniques to assess the combined land resources to establish land suitability to support what kind of vegetation and crops. Therefore giving farmers reliable information that is very detrimental in agricultural planning and crop cultivation, hence boosting farming activities. The application of modeling techniques provides information and prediction on environmental changes that are associated with the inventory and survey or real-time monitoring statistics such as the likelihood of soil nutrient degradation. Another implication of land modeling techniques is that it explores and gives the likely effects of the behavioral response and fate of any component in the soil and the impacts of the predicted change in climate and how the change affects the soil composition. In summary, the land information system and land use management information system success depends on the input of other dependent systems and stakeholders, as illustrated in the figure below.

In conclusion, land information systems and land use management systems are fundamental in providing timely and purposeful land and environmental information drawn from related soil thematic data to provide useful and insights on land management, capability, and properties. The harmonic integration of the LIS, LUMIS, and GIS by the department of land has enabled tremendous development and improvement in Saudi Arabian land utilization in the past 35 years. Land information management system has provided Arabian state departments with the relevant information that has enhanced the land resource management and Arabians farmers with relevant and reliable information on land properties hence serving as a crucial tool in agricultural decision-making processes.

Land use and management information system has been of great importance to Saudi Arabian land and resource management since its adoption over 30 years ago. LUMIS provides critical information that support decision-making processes, therefore translates to proper land resources utilization of all the available land resources such as land building rental and leasing, forestry production and agricultural planning