Towards UAV-based Land Tenure Data Acquisition in Rwanda : Needs Assessment and Technology Response

As a response to the urgent need to record the millions of unregistered land parcels, governments and the international development community seek to design appropriate policies and leverage innovative technologies. Amongst others, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as a tool for alternative land tenure data acquisition. The advent of low cost, reliable and lightweight UAVs have created new opportunities for collecting timely, tailored and highquality geospatial information. Even though UAVs appear a promising technology, it is not clear to what extent they meet the needs of communities and governments in the land sector. Furthermore, major bottlenecks are evident: cumbersome regulatory frameworks and undeveloped ground truthing strategies, amongst others, are issues currently impeding scaled application. Thus, the question remains whether the application of UAVs can meet contemporary land administration requirements in developing countries.