26 G I S AT T H E C O R E O F S D I s Economic Growth Strategy Transformed Through a Spatial Data Infrastructure Croatia Simplifies Landownership Process with a National Geoportal Highlights „ The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension is improving land reform. „ With ArcGIS Server, ministries quickly access geospatial resources of all types. „ Croatian GIS users now have access to vast quantities of geospatial data. The Republic of Croatia, roughly the size of West Virginia, is home to more than 4.4 million people. Ranked as the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, sightseers visit its beautiful national parks, the high peaks of the Dinaric Alps, and more than 1,000 islands in the temperate Adriatic Sea. A successor state of the former Yugoslavia, the country declared its independence in 1991, which the European Union (EU) and the United Nations recognized in 1992. Building itself up from virtually nothing, the country is now governed by a forward-thinking parliamentary republic, which is adopting new laws to promote economic growth and help its candidacy for EU membership. Making countrywide geographic data available throughout the nation with a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is one way the country continues to grow. An online geoportal created with GIS technology makes this possible. The geoportal makes it easier for citizens, government, and private-sector users to find and access vast quantities of geographic information and related services. The geoportal is the first phase of a Croatian national SDI and has already shown its value by reducing the time it takes to register land within the country by 90 percent. Enabling Property Rights in Croatia Ten years ago, a simple land title transaction took an average of 400 days to carry out. Most information was stored and managed in paper-based files, making it difficult to share. Agencies, such as the State Geodetic Administration (SGA) in charge of the country’s official maps and cadastre, and the Ministry of Justice, responsible for land registers issued at municipal courts, could not easily exchange data. A view over the old city walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and its old harbor. In 2000, the Croatian Parliament adopted a State Survey and Real Property Cadastre Program to transform the existing registers into digital format. This involved topographic surveys as well as resurveying 5 percent of the existing cadastre focusing on areas of special interest, such as towns, coastlines, islands, nonregulated state agricultural land, and infrastructure corridors. The datasets were cofinanced by federal institutions and interested local governing bodies. For example, orthophoto production was completed through 30 different agreements between local and state governments. Over a 10-year period, 21 counties produced topographic data and resurveyed each cadastre. By the end of 2010, 56,000 cadastral maps will be digitized and verified. Once created, the data is gathered and housed in the Real Property Registration and Cadastre Joint Information System (JIS). The JIS unites the cadastral data managed by SGA and legal information from the Ministry of Justice. Having consistent and shareable data across the country via the ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension is improving the processes of implementing land reform because documents can be issued from both cadastre and land registers. The average time for processing changes to land titles has dropped from a 400-day average to less than 37 days. Online Data Access Through Geoportal As the first step toward an SDI, the cadastral data managed by SGA is now available for browsing, searching, and purchasing via an online data catalog found at www.geo-portal.hr/Portal. To develop the geoportal, the state selected Esri’s distributor in Croatia, GISDATA d.o.o., and con terra GmbH, the professional services arm of Esri Deutschland GmbH, Esri’s distributor in Germany and Switzerland. The companies established an action plan to develop a national SDI. They chose ArcGIS Server and the ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension to provide the platform for the state’s ministries to quickly access geospatial resources regardless of location or type. Based on the EU’s Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) directives for sharing geographic information across Europe, Croatia’s national SDI will provide a more open, transparent, and efficient use of spatial information, as seen through the improved land registration. SGA registers data with the geoportal by using metadata, which follows the ISO standards As the first step toward an SDI, the cadastral data managed by SGA is now available for browsing, searching, and purchasing via an online data catalog found at www.geo-portal.hr/Portal.