A cadastre is a system of major importance for economy and planning. A cadastre provides data on land. It is the basis for legal aspects like ownership as well as fiscal aspects like taxation of land. The cadastre also provides data for planning assignments (for example, boundaries of constructions, land use, and soil). Storage and update of these data require a complex system that had been developed in Austria during more than 100 years.
Understanding, using, and improving a cadastre requires knowledge on the cadastral processes. The problems a cadastre must solve are important to understand the needs for a cadastre. It is also important to understand the processes of a cadastre to see how a cadastre works. These processes define the way a cadastre handles data and what prerequisites the data must fulfil to be accepted by the cadastre. Improving a system requires analysis of the processes. The user wants to work with a cadastre. He needs processes that meet his demands. Improving the efficiency of the processes, therefore, improves the efficiency of the cadastre directly because then the user will be satisfied (his work will be done better or faster).
The paper discusses the tasks of a cadastre. The starting point is the needs of users (owners, government and many others). The needs define the tasks and the data needed to fulfil the tasks. The next step is the definition of the processes to fulfil the tasks. The paper then formalizes these processes. Finally, implementations for two different cadastral systems prove the general validity of the processes.