LUDB: New Zealand Land Use Database Envirolink Tools Project

Author: Dr Daniel Rutledge
Date: 10 March 2010

Tags: land use, LUDB, Envirolink Tools, Regional Council Land Monitoring Forum, Landcare Research

The New Zealand Land Use Database project is a two-year Envirolink Tools project running from January 2010 to December 2011.

The Regional Council Land Monitoring Forum and Landcare Research are working together on the project, which aims to develop a national land-use database consisting of:

• Land Information Engine - for collecting, synthesising, generating, reporting and storing land-use information
• Classification - for consistently representing land use across multiple scales
• Geospatial Land Use Layer - for quantifying and analysing land-use trends.

The need

New Zealand currently lacks nationally consistent land-use information, and this was confirmed through recent surveys* identifying a critical need for better information. The information from these surveys will enable improved policy and planning development and resource management. Regional councils, in particular, highlighted a need for nationally consistent, coordinated, and regularly updated land-use information to help fulfil their statutory requirements under the Resource Management Act.

Pressing information needs requiring better land-use information include:

• better reporting of land use and land-use change
• identifying the key drivers of land-use change
• tracking intensification or urban expansion.

Benefits

• Provide a consistent framework for environmental reporting on land use and land-use change within New Zealand.
• Facilitate resource management information across jurisdictional boundaries and spatial scales.
• Start to put in place coordinated processes for ongoing, consistent collection and dissemination of land-use information.

Land Use Database in context

The Land Use Database tool represents the next step in the evolution of land-use information for New Zealand. A recent review** identified four previous attempts within New Zealand to develop a land-use classification. The most recent was a land-use layer (LUNZ) that focused on primary production uses for the CLUES project***. The project is currently being updated.

Further several purpose-built land-use classifications and datasets, databases and associated geospatial data layers are being developed:

• water quality (CLUES)
• groundwater (IRAP)
• integrated spatially-explicit decision support systems (Creating Futures)
• integrated catchment management (Motueka ICM)
• rural land use change (LURNZ)
• resource management (Environment Canterbury)
• Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS).

This project will start to bring those efforts together and provide a sound framework for ongoing land-use information collection, analysis, monitoring, and reporting.

More information

For more information about the LUDB project, contact:

Dr Daniel Rutledge
Senior Scientist and Project Leader
Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research
Hamilton

Phone: 07 859 3727
Email:  rutledged@landcareresearch.co.nz

*Surveys organised by Statistics New Zealand and the Regional Council Land Monitoring Forum.

**Rutledge, Price, Briggs, Cowell. 2009: Geospatial Land Use Classification for New Zealand: Review and Recommendations. Statistics New Zealand OS Research Series 5.

***MAF and the Ministry for the Environment have been working with NIWA on the Catchment Land Use for Environmental Sustainability (CLUES) project.