Geographic Information System (GIS) Specialists support a multitude of activities for the Bureau Of Land Management (BLM) and other federal, tribal, state and local land management offices.  In the broad context of land management, cadastral information quite often is regarded simply as records of survey corners and boundaries --- or, in the West, as the PLSS land net.

In fact, while cadastral information includes corners and boundaries, it also encompasses a much broader range of topics, such as:

• who owns the land and who has owned the land in the past
• whether the land is privately owned, or held and managed as public land
• who retains water rights, and surface and subsurface mineral rights
• if there are utility, recreation, transportation or other easements crossing the land
• permits, licenses, rights and restrictions pertaining to uses of the land
• transactions which have occurred or are occurring on the land
• legal land descriptions describing the location of each of the real property interest in the land

• Public use and recreation leases and permits
• Land sales and color of title actions
• Land Acquisitions
• Land Exchanges
• American Indian fee and trust patents
• Withdrawals - military, monument, wilderness, easements (encumbrance)
• Appraisals - for transactions involving the direct purchase of property, land exchanges, sale, or, in some cases authorization of certain uses of public lands.
• Title Resolution
• Land Patent Records
• Minerals -  Leasing, Patents, Permits
• Abandoned Mine Lands cleanup
• Conveyance Management - adjudication, title adjustment, land law
• Public easement and rights-of-way program - use permits for parks, power transmission lines and roads
• Claim adjudication
• Grazing allotments - permit/lease
• Water rights
• Forestry - fuel wood, Christmas tree, forest products, timber sales
• Unwritten rights
• Land Use Plans and Resource Management Plans
• Energy and non-energy leases
• Administrative Boundaries and Special Management (Area) Unit Boundaries

In the process of capturing, analyzing and displaying spatial information for the above kinds of activities, GIS Specialists work with cadastral information every day.  And yet in many cases GIS Specialists are unaware of the depth of cadastral information, and the broad range of its uses.

This educational module is designed to provide GIS Specialists who support large land management agencies with a more complete understanding of cadastral information.

The map below illustrates several kinds of cadastral information, including Public Land Survey township and section lines, and subdivided areas according to their status as lands leased for coal.