Before establishing the relationship between land administration and sustainable development of communities, it is important to examine or understand what land administration includes and is it different from land governance. Most prominent part of land administration is creation, maintenance, updation of land records, keep tracking land development measures, establishing property rights, settlement of land  land revenue, and property registration and valuation amongst others. Most importantly, land is crucial for any development planning and process. therefore, effective and efficient land administration can reduce transaction cost, reduce corruption, develop sustainable planning, and also simultaneously induce economic development. Land acquisition is an important part of land policy and implementation  but this has been resisted massively by the public in developing countries. planners and implementers have to carefully formulate policies and implement the policy while taking communities concerns into consideration. because our establishing property rights itself is in ambiguity it becomes difficult to effectively plan for economic development. there are conflicts in customary and statutory property rights; there are issues of corruption, litigation and abundant land related disputes, indigenous cultural issues, livelihood issues, etc. attached with land administration. Land administration is a complex governance process but very vital in sustainable development of communities if effectively and efficiently managed.

This is an important and  yet tricky question. Land administration includes all land related activities as far as tenure is concerned including land use  ,which in my opinion is the most important   with respect to communal sustainability . It's true that land use it highly affected by tenure systems ,but it’s the land use that have direct impact on sustainable development. Empirical investigation of sustainable land use  planning can addressed from various perspectives     

Dear Christopher,

the range of possible answers is probably as large as the range of disciplines. As a qualitative social science researcher, I read your question as a question about method and methodology. It seems to me that first of all, you would want to qualitatively describe the relationship between land administration and sustainable development of communities. But what does this mean? Alongside other answers I concur that this includes opening up what land is and how land is used. To turn your question into an instrument, I read it as pointing to at least four components

Now, how can you study the relationships between them? I would propose you choose a method like ethnography that allows you to actually describe and critically question the actual (rather than the ideal) empirical relationships in the work and life practices of administrators and people in a particular community affected/targeted by a policy. So, your study could set out from a workplace study of those administrators who try to do "good": what is it they actually do? What is the reality of "administration" when you study it as a form of practice involving real people and their instruments (computers, documents, team meetings, etc)? To give you a taste of what that might involve, look e.g. at Büscher's Transforming the Frontier: Peace Parks and the Politics of Neoliberal Conservation in Southern Africa. Or read up on workplace studies in public administration, e.g. Rhodes' Everyday Life in a Ministry: Public Administration as Anthropology. I recently edited a special issue in Geoforum that engages with workplace studies of agents who attempt to work towards sustainable development (with a focus on environmental managers); the SI might also offer you some interesting ideas of how to approach your study.

I hope this is a helpful response, even if it just helps to clarify your methodological commitments.

best,

Ingmar

http://dx.doi.org/10/7sd