Remote Sensing, Vol. 11, Pages 1957: Towards an Underground Utilities 3D Data Model for Land Administration (Remote Sensing)

With the pressure of the increasing density of urban areas, some public infrastructures are moving to the underground to free up space above, such as utility lines, rail lines and roads. In the big data era, the three-dimensional (3D) data can be beneficial to understand the complex urban area. Comparing to spatial data and information of the above ground, we lack the precise and detailed information about underground infrastructures, such as the spatial information of underground infrastructure, the ownership of underground objects and the interdependence of infrastructures in the above and below ground. How can we map reliable 3D underground utility networks and use them in the land administration? First, to explain the importance of this work and find a possible solution, this paper observes the current issues of the existing underground utility database in Singapore. A framework for utility data governance is proposed to manage the work process from the underground utility data capture to data usage. This is the backbone to support the coordination of different roles in the utility data governance and usage. Then, an initial design of the 3D underground utility data model is introduced to describe the 3D geometric and spatial information about underground utility data and connect it to the cadastral parcel for land administration. In the case study, the newly collected data from mobile Ground Penetrating Radar is integrated with the existing utility data for 3D modelling. It is expected to explore the integration of new collected 3D data, the existing 2D data and cadastral information for land administration of underground utilities.