Upgrading to 3D cadastre in Morocco: Lessons learned from benchmarking of international 3D cadastral systems

Currently, there is a growing interest internationally in 3D cadastre thanks to its capability in efficient management of land properties and rights. However, there is no fully operational system yet. Notable developments in 3D cadastre have been conducted by several countries with different levels of maturity. However, some conceptual and technical challenges are still at the research and development fields. Morocco has not adopted a 3D cadastral system yet. Investigations in this domain are mainly academic. This has motivated us to bring a thorough analysis about upgrading to a 3D Moroccan cadastre. Therefore, this research aims to provide guidelines, reflections and recommendations for its implementation, supported by a benchmarking of some best practices around the world. In this paper, the importance of adopting a 3D cadastral system is highlighted, and an overview of the main concepts and approaches of 3D cadastre is presented. Besides, several milestones of 3D cadastre, namely legal, institutional and technical are analyzed. Then, the current status of the Moroccan cadastre with regards to the third dimension is deeply analyzed. In order to propose a suitable 3D cadastral system in the Moroccan context, a gap analysis between the benchmarked countries and the current Moroccan cadastre is performed, through which guidelines for adopting a future 3D cadastre for Morocco with regards to legal, institutional and technical aspects are proposed. Our research leads to the conclusion that Morocco has a good framework to evolve to 3D cadastre but work is needed to develop a collaborative approach to implement it.