From underground utility survey to land administration: An underground utility 3D data model

Abstract Subsurface utility infrastructure is omnipresent in the often highly contested shallow layers of the subsurface of densely urbanised areas. Reliable information on the location of such utilities is pivotal for the planning and management of such space. Land administration tasks such as ownership management, land acquisition, planning and (re)development depend on and benefit strongly from the availability of reliable information of sufficient quality on the underground including utilities. The objective of the Digital Underground project in Singapore is to establish an authoritative dataset of underground utilities that aims to serve the needs of land administration practices. The work described in this paper aims to develop an underground utility 3D data model to manage and integrate various data from underground utility survey to underground utility data using in land administration. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) provides a formal language to manage the rights, responsibilities and restrictions information of land (or water), and the geospatial components. The Underground Utility Data Model (UUDM) inherits some definition from LADM to manage the information related to underground utility survey and land administration. This work provides a preliminary to explore the modelling and using underground utility information in land administration. It can help to develop the data model as a standard for underground utility data management and quality control in the next step.