The FAO Subregional Office for Central Asia has launched a two-year technical cooperation project in Turkmenistan to support the creation and improvement of a digital land cadastre system and geospatial data infrastructure – the basis of GPS navigation and electronic multilayer mapping, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper writes.
The project will be implemented jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan. It was presented during the recent three-day visit to Ashgabat by a group of FAO experts. The delegation included Maxim Gorgan, an expert on land management, Vladimir Evtimov, an expert on geodesy and cadastre, and Bradley Paterson, an expert on land use.
The one of the districts of the Akhal province will be determined a pilot area the project, where special equipment will be tested by this fall, as well as training for land surveyors and cartographers to take place.
Land Relations Specialist, Project Coordinator from the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (Budapest) Maxim Gorgan explained: “In general, we are going to create a Roadmap for the development of the geospatial data structure, conduct field research on the selected site, where stationary reference base stations of the global navigation satellite system will be installed, which is necessary for cadastral measurements, determining the boundaries of natural and administrative objects.”
According to him, as a result, an open national coordinate system will be developed – a single basis for digitalization of land management, land inventory, monitoring of pastures and crops. The emphasis will be placed on agricultural land, but the technology is also applicable to the lands of all sectors of the economy.
Additionally, it is intended to create an operational manual for cadastral studies, a conceptual reference for the development of a coordinate system, and a manual for digitizing cadastral records as part of the project. It is necessary to computerize the land cadastre information system.
The assessment of lands in Turkmenistan is carried out every five years. For example, in 2012-2016, an inspection and accounting of farmland was fulfilled; from 2017 to 2021, an economic audit of all lands was performed. The assessment of the condition of irrigated lands in comparison with long-term data on the land fund utilization, as well as the calculation of economically utilized lands by individuals and legal entities, have been done since 2022.
The head of the Cadastre Department of the Land Resources Service Govshut Shadurdiyev noted that the inventory of land is necessary for a well-thought-out distribution. The task of the agroindustry is to maintain the agricultural areas that are annually allotted for the cultivation of food crops including wheat and cotton, sugar beet, rice, fruit and vegetable products, and melon, which make up a significant share of the economy. Digitalization of this activity, the development of new methods will help to maintain high rates of development of the agro-industrial complex. ///nCa, 20 June 2023
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