We present a method to construct inverse scattering problems for integrable nonlinear evolution equations in the two-spatial dimension. The temporal component is the adjoint of the linearized equation and the spatial component is a partial differential equation with respect to the spatial variables. Although this idea has been known for the one-spatial dimension for some time, it is the first time that this method is presented for the case of the higher-spatial dimension. We present this method in detail for the Veselov-Novikov equation and the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation.