AN ASSESSMENT OF CADASTRAL PRACTICE IN NIGER STATE FOR EFFECTIVE LAND TITLING SYSTEM

Abstract

The product of a Cadastral Surveys is an essential subset for effective land titling. Land titling procedure in Niger State has been an age-long concern among geo-spatial experts. This study presents a revalidation survey of 20 selected Title Deed Plans (TDPs) with a view to identify possible positional, dimensional, orientational and locational errors in them. The V30 Pro GNSS DGPS receiver unit was used to conduct the revalidation survey and compared with existing TDPs. Fifteen (15) out of the twenty (20) resurveyed land titles does not met the required accuracy for Third Order cadastral surveys as prescribed in the cadastral law. The deviation in orientation between the existing and resurveyed TDPs range between 04032’28’’ and 10015’56’’ while the difference in distances range between 0.86 and 1.64 respectively. Based on the obtained result, the observational and procedural standards were recommended. The study therefore developed a web-based application. The developed web-based application used the Google Earth Imagery as base map. In order to ensure datum/positional consistency between the existing cadastral system and the Google Earth, the seven (7) parameters transformation model developed by OSGOF (2018) was embedded into the program to automatically transform all coordinates from Clarke 1880 to WGS84. The web-based application was developed with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, and is capable of aiding land verification improving accuracy of land measurements for effective cadastral practice in Niger State. The study recommends that revalidation survey should be embarked upon on all the existing titles in the State.