The concept of a geographic information system for the identification of degraded urban areas as a part of the land administration system - A Polish case study

Suburbanization leads to urban sprawl, and it contributes to the depopulation of cities, underinvestment in urban infrastructure and, in combination with population ageing, to urban degradation. Conscious land administration and sustainable spatial policies are needed to prevent such processes. The parties responsible for spatial planning (municipal decision makers: planners, administration authorities and property administrators) are only able to make optimal decisions if they are well informed about the processes occurring in urbanized areas. For this reason, decision makers have to be provided with access to valid and reliable data on the legal and spatial status of land. This study was conducted on the assumption that a cohesive system is required for collecting and creating access to comprehensive data to identify degraded urban areas. Poland does not have a uniform geographic information system supporting policy makers in this matter. The following research hypothesis was formulated for the needs of this study: as a sub-module of the Integrated Real Estate Information System (IREIS), the proposed Geographic Information System for the Identification of Degraded Urban Areas (GIS-IDUA) will streamline the process of identifying degraded areas. The IREIS is a Polish land administration system which integrates public real estate registers and provides information about various processes occurring in urbanized areas. This article attempts to determine whether the Polish LAS, referred to as the IREIS, can supply the public administration with the data and tools required for the identification of degraded urban areas. This goal was achieved by evaluating the degree of data overlap between the GIS-IDUA and the currently developed IREIS. Data required for the identification of problematic urban areas were selected and grouped for the needs of the conducted analysis. The results of the study validated the research hypothesis.