Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
• “Prédio rústico” (Rural property unit)—which may be situated either in rural or
urban areas. The main characteristic of this type of properties is that they are not
meant to be subjected to any sort of construction development, and hence are
principally devoted to agriculture or forestry activities. Besides land lots, this
parcel type may also include water bodies and crops (separate from the land lot
where they happen to lie on).
• “Prédio urbano” (Urban property unit)—which are situated within urban areas
only. This type of property includes any manmade construction (i.e. meant for
residential, commerce, industrial or services purposes), and may also include
land lots meant to be developed.
• “Prédio misto” (Mixed parcel unit)—Although rare, this is a very speciic type
to classify those properties that have both rural and urban characteristics and
none of them can be identified as the main one.
Since both national records were implemented, cadastral information of both
“Registo Predial” and “Matriz Predial” is based on text. Each property unit is geo-
referenced by explicit reference to its northern, southern, eastern and western neigh-
bouring parcels or geospatial features (e.g. roads, railways, water bodies, etc.). This is
what actually still happens in most instances, as the coordinated cadastre is currently
still being surveyed. Cadastral survey was launched in 1926 by the national mapping
and cadastral agency and has not covered the whole country yet. It has been indeed a
rather complex and demanding operation to undertake given Portugal's territory tis-
sue: a country of a few millions of literally microscopic properties, especially in the
mainland's northern-half, also in Azores and Madeira archipelagos. Figures
1
and
2
illustrate respectively examples of a cadastral section map produced in the early 20th
century and a more recent general cadastral map digitally produced.
Cadastral surveying started off in the mainland's southern-half, where one of the
main sources of the country's economy in the first half of the 20th century was: the
“latifundium” (the Latin word standing for a large landed farming estate). That is why
it only covered then rural properties; urban properties were never surveyed until a
pilot experiment was carried out between Jan 2006 and Feb 2008 in one of the civil
parishes of Pombal district: Albergaria-a-Velha (mainland's west-centre). This was a
key step towards cadastre modernisation. Since then, Portugal has embarked on vari-
ous other initiatives to modernise its cadastral survey. Cadastral surveying is currently
being accomplished district-by-district covering both kinds of properties, rural and
urban. As depicted in Fig.
3
, by the end of 2011 more than 50 % of the mainland was
surveyed, though this only corresponds to roughly 1/3 of the total number of proper-
ties in the country. Currently, 7 districts are being surveyed in Portugal's mainland:
Paredes and Penafiel (in the northwest); Oliveira-do-Hospital and Seia (in the centre);
Tavira, São-Brás-de-Alportel and Loulé (in the Algarve).
3.2 The Future: SiNErGIG
Overall, property cadastre has been traditionally serving the basis for both
