1. Introduction
The Scottish Government made a commitment in the Budget (2024/25) and the Scottish tax Strategy to consider the role of tax to support land reform and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land, including potentially a carbon land tax. In recent advice to Scottish Ministers, the Scottish Land Commission (SLC - 2026)2 recommended “the need for more systemic improvements to the tax infrastructure – the data, valuations, capacity and systems” (p.4). Another SLC (2025)3 report also emphasised the need for complete data on ownership, land values, and land use to support land taxes. A complete and accurate cadastral system is essential for facilitating a land tax. A cadastral system can also play an important role in formulating, implementing, and evaluating a country’s land use policy framework. A cadastral system is the infrastructure (i.e. the administrative and legal structures) that manages records, registers and other data sources concerned with land ownership, usage, and value.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s international standards, a cadastral system should include
A Register of Titles (also known as a Land Register): Textual Data that records legal information, identifying who owns the land and what rights or restrictions apply.
A Cadastre: Spatial data that maps and defines the location, boundaries, and extent of land parcels.
The combination of these two elements provides legal certainty of ownership (textual data from the Land Register in the form of deeds) and the size/volume of a land parcel4 (spatial data from the cadastre). For countries in the European Union, the INSPIRE dataset framework harmonises cadastre data requirements.
Additional information can be included in a cadastral system around land value (i.e. the value of the most recent transaction, or from another official source), responsibilities (i.e. legal obligations around the management of the land), rights (i.e. how land can be occupied, used, controlled, and transferred), and in some cases land use and designations (i.e. if any part of the land is designated as a Nature Reserve or similar).
A well-functioning cadastral system is also a mechanism to ensure transparent land governance, fair and appropriate taxation on land5, and a reliable means to value land. They can increase trust and scrutiny in policy decisions by being transparent and can form a basis for evidence-based policy-making.
A Land Information System (LIS) is the next stage of development from a cadastral system, as it combines more data sources for elsewhere in a government. A LIS is defined as:
“A Land Information System refers to all land-related data banks that have the land parcel as the common geographic unit, and that by means of coordination and standardization together provide an integrated methodology for the collection, maintenance, updating, and utilization of land-related information. It can be conceived as the final product of a complete network of the following three general land-related data banks or land recording systems: 1—the cadastral survey; 2—the land registration system; and 3—all relevant public, private, and mixed land information sources.” (Quintero, 2004)6
Table 1: Elements of a Cadastral System
| System | Data involved | Primary purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Register of Titles / Land Register | Textual data of ownership, rights and restrictions | Legal certainty of ownership, rights and restrictions |
| Cadastre | Spatial data of land parcels | Maps and defines the location, boundaries, and extent of land parcels |
| Cadastral System | Register of Titles and Cadastre data combined | Administrative and legal structures to manage the Register and Cadastre |
| Land Information System (LIS) | All of the above, plus other available spatial data sets concerned with land | Multi-functional, for policy design/ implementation/monitoring & evaluation, research, and private sector business |
The aim of this research is to explore how different cadastral systems operate in practice, the type of data collected, typical users of the system (both public and private sectors) and other points of relevance for purposes around taxation, valuation and ownership transparency.
To achieve this, international comparative research was conducted, comparing the Scottish system to four other European countries, the Netherlands, Finland, Estonia, and Belgium. The case studies highlight similarities and differences between different systems, as well as providing interesting or best practice examples to be considered in a Scottish context.
2 Scottish Land Commission (2026). Tax options for reducing emissions from land and supporting land reform: Advice to Scottish Ministers. https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/downloads/SLC-Tax Advice-FINAL.pdf
3 Scottish Land Commission (2025) WPI Economics: Approach to land valuation in the tax system. Available at: Approaches to land valuation in the tax system. https://blogs.gov.scot/ digital/2025/10/03/mapping-the-future-scotlands-lidar-revolution/
4 A land parcel is defined as “a continuous area, or more appropriately volume, that is identified by a unique set of homogeneous property rights” (Dale and McLaughlin, 2000)
5 A recent report produced for the Scottish Land Commission confirms the importance of a complete cadastral system in four international examples. Beebee, M., Chitrao, A., Gregory, R., and McPherson, E. (2025) Approaches to land valuation in the tax system. Scottish Land Commission.
6 Guintero, J, R. (2004) Land Information System. International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioural Sciences. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/referencework/abs/pii/ B0080430767991071
