Digitization of Property Index Maps: One Step towards GIS Standards in Albania

Abstract

The introduction of Albania to market-oriented economy has been associated with a rapid increase in the amount of information created to support the existing and newly created institutions. Albanian institutions, although faced with financial limited resources, are generating new data required by their new roles in society. Large amounts of data are originated by many donor-funded projects implemented in Albania. In addition, the private sector is becoming an important player not only for data processing but data capturing as well. In most cases, this information is created in digital form. However, while the amount of the data has been rapidly increasing, often these initiatives have been uncoordinated. Therefore, there has been a lack of intentions on designing standards that would make the data more valuable in the long term. This paper presents a description of the map digitization process involved in the creation of the Immovable Property Registration System (IPRS) as an example of introducing standards as a means of improving production, quality control, and increasing the potential for data sharing. Although we are conscious of the large variety of digital information different institutions in Albania will create in the future, this paper serves as a call for all institutions to consider the important issues of standards before getting involved in any project with investments made in creating digital data/information.