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Ground-level (tropospheric) ozone (O3) exists at a natural background level but is also produced when nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds from vehicle emissions, petrol fumes, industrial processes solvents, and other human-made sources react in the presence of sunlight. It is the primary component of photochemical smog.
Ozone also occurs naturally in the stratosphere, where it protects us from ultraviolet radiation – this ozone occasionally can mix downwards to ground level.
Because sunlight and warmth are required for the chemical reactions that form ground-level ozone, peak concentrations often occur in summer when daylight hours are longer and temperatures are higher. Since the precursors for ozone can travel downwind from their sources before they react with sunlight, ozone concentrations can be high many kilometres from the precursor emissions’ sources.
Exposure to high concentrations of ozone can cause respiratory health problems and is linked to cardiovascular health problems and mortality. It can also damage vegetation.
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

Submerged plants are good indicators of the ecological quality of lakes. Because they are attached to the bed of lakes, submerged plants are easy to observe and identify, and they are unable to move away from environmental changes. The plant species found within lakes can tell us about their level of habitat degradation and exotic weed invasion.

The file contains Lake submerged plant index scores for each sampling occasion.

The Land Use Map is composed of New Zealand-wide land use classifications (12) nominally at 1 January 1990, 1 January 2008, 31 December 2012 and 31 December 2016 (known as "1990", "2008", "2012" and "2016"). These date boundaries were dictated by the First and Second Commitment Periods of the Kyoto Protocol. The layer can therefore be used to create either a 1990, 2008, 2012 or 2016 land use map depending on what field is symbolised.

These data estimate the occurence of extreme wave events in coastal and oceanic waters for 2012, particularly for wave events where significant wave height exceeds a threshold of 8 metres and for a period of at least 12 hours. Significant wave height is defined as four times the square root of the variance of sea surface elevation due to wave motion.

More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

These data estimate the occurence of extreme wave events in coastal and oceanic waters for 2012, particularly for wave events where significant wave height exceeds a threshold of 6 metres and for a period of at least 12 hours. Significant wave height is defined as four times the square root of the variance of sea surface elevation due to wave motion.

More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.