Nurturing talents of geomatics surveyors to meet the challenges of land supply, works projects and smart city of Hong Kong

Abstract

The challenges brought by a growing number of large-scale land development projects (e.g., Northern Metropolis, Lantau Tomorrow, and related infrastructures) in Hong Kong must be met by innovative land acquisition planning and processes. A recent quick win solution to land supply for Works projects has been in trial commissioning the provisional draft land resumption plan preparations and related survey works from the government to consultants, specifically the Authorized Land Surveyor (ALS) in the private sector. The industry therefore must consider the necessary and diverse sources of expertise available, and the existing land surveying technical resources that will render support to such new initiatives. Collaboration is called for between the spheres of public sector, education, and works industry to successfully move the use of cadastral survey for land management forwards, bridging the gap between lands and works practices for efficient processing of Works projects, and smart city development of Hong Kong. This paper will examine the new approach of professional surveying that private practicing ALSs bring, and why the overall number of ALS and engineering surveyors in the construction industry is growing so slowly. It will additionally compare Hong Kong's practice with that of the mainland China, Singapore, and the UK to grasp global learning points. The paper recommends the establishment of a Cadastral Survey Lab (CSL) firstly to explore the policy implementation of a sound cadastral system. The processing of lot boundary determination by ALS is reviewed. The regulatory roles of the Land Survey Authority (LSA) are requested in approving new land boundary plans; this both replaces the Demarcation District (DD) Sheet boundary and improves land boundary records. Secondly, the CSL can serve as a coordinating body in curating various kinds of land records from diverse sources, and aids the research and knowledge management of cadastral survey, land law, land tenure, land registration systems, land boundary record keeping, problematic lot boundary determination, etc. These topics can be considered in the refining geomatics education curriculum, and furthermore developed into guidance notes for geomatics survey practitioners. The evolution of the traditional land surveying profession into the geomatics services has become a recent international trend that is growing in popularity in the survey profession. Combining geo-spatial data from the planning and design stages, alongside the use of standardised survey data processing in project implementation and asset management, would encourage data sharing, avoid duplicate efforts, and facilitate the formation of a digital city. The spectrums of geomatics education in universities should be widened with a refined curriculum on combining geomatics with cadastral survey that has evolved from the traditional lot boundary survey to multi-purpose cadastre, city information modelling, urban informatics, smart city administration, and a full-blown Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI).