World Data - Page 3

Lightning is the discharge of electricity from thunderstorms. Ground strikes can cause significant damage to property and infrastructure, and injure or kill people and livestock. Lightning is often associated with other severe weather events, such as strong wind gusts. Thunderstorms may increase in frequency and intensity with climate change.

This dataset shows the location of sensors in the New Zealand Lightning Detection Network (NZLDN), run by MetService.

Sensors around the country detect lightning over the New Zealand land mass and a short distance out to sea. These sensors detect very accurately the electrical discharge, location, and time, as well as noting other parameters such as current strength. The NZLDN records both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes.

The REC groups rivers and parts of river networks that share similar ecological characteristics, including physical and biological. Rivers that share the same class can be treated as similar to one another and different to rivers in other classes. The REC classification system groups rivers according to several environmental factors that strongly influence or cause the rivers’ physical and ecological characteristics (climate, topography, geology and land cover). A catchment is a polygon that defines the upstream watershed of a river system or sub-system. Land cover within the catchment was used to populate the river classification factors (see table 1.1 of the User Guide data.mfe.govt.nz/document/123-rec-user-guide-2010/ ).

Additional metadata can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/metadata/env-clas...

The REC groups rivers and parts of river networks that share similar ecological characteristics, including physical and biological. Rivers that share the same class can be treated as similar to one another and different to rivers in other classes. The REC classification system groups rivers according to several environmental factors that strongly influence or cause the rivers’ physical and ecological characteristics (climate, topography, geology and land cover). A catchment is a polygon that defines the upstream watershed of a river system or sub-system. Land cover within the catchment was used to populate the river classification factors (see table 1.1 of the User Guide data.mfe.govt.nz/document/123-rec-user-guide-2010/ ).

Additional metadata can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/metadata/env-clas...

Wetlands support high levels of biodiversity. They provide habitat for native invertebrates, plants, fish, and bird species (eg fernbird, kōkopu, and eels), many of which live only in wetlands. Wetlands act as ‘kidneys’ and giant sponges – they clean the water of excess nutrients and sediment, control flood water and pollutants, and act as carbon sinks (removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere). Wetlands have strong cultural and spiritual importance for Māori. They are a food source (eg eel, whitebait) and provide material for weaving (eg raupō, harakeke (flax)). Draining wetlands for agricultural and urban development over the past 150 years has led to significant wetland loss and deterioration.

Summary report available at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/fresh-water/analysis-...

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.

The REC groups rivers and parts of river networks that share similar ecological characteristics, including physical and biological. Rivers that share the same class can be treated as similar to one another and different to rivers in other classes. The REC classification system groups rivers according to several environmental factors that strongly influence or cause the rivers’ physical and ecological characteristics (climate, topography, geology and land cover). A catchment is a polygon that defines the upstream watershed of a river system or sub-system. Land cover within the catchment was used to populate the river classification factors (see table 1.1 of the User Guide data.mfe.govt.nz/document/123-rec-user-guide-2010/ ).

Additional metadata can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/metadata/env-clas...

The New Zealand River Environment Classification (REC) organises information about the physical characteristics of New Zealand's rivers. Individual river sections are mapped according to physical factors such as climate, source of flow for the river water, topography, and geology, and catchment land cover eg, forest, pasture or urban. Sections of river that have similar ecological characteristics can then be grouped together, no matter where they are.

This information is mapped for New Zealand's entire river network - over 425,000 kilometres of river. Different types of rivers respond differently to the pressures placed on them - the REC can be used to highlight the most appropriate management tools and approaches to reduce these pressures for each river type. Information from the classification is used to develop policy, assess the environment, and report on the quality of river water.

Stream order is the numerical position of a tributary or section of a river within the entire network. Headwater streams are assigned a stream order of 1. When two tributaries of the same stream order meet, the order increments by one for the next section downstream. However, if two sections meet where one section has higher order than the other, the next section downstream has the same order as the highest upstream section.

Additional metadata can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/metadata/env-clas... .

The REC groups rivers and parts of river networks that share similar ecological characteristics, including physical and biological. Rivers that share the same class can be treated as similar to one another and different to rivers in other classes. The REC classification system groups rivers according to several environmental factors that strongly influence or cause the rivers’ physical and ecological characteristics (climate, topography, geology and land cover). A catchment is a polygon that defines the upstream watershed of a river system or sub-system. Land cover within the catchment was used to populate the river classification factors (see table 1.1 of the User Guide www.mfe.govt.nz/environmental-reporting/about/tool... ).

Additional metadata can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/metadata/env-clas... .

The Marine Environment Classification (MEC), a GIS-based environmental classification of the marine environment of the New Zealand region, is an ecosystem-based spatial framework designed for marine management purposes.

Several spatially-explicit data layers describing the physical environment define the MEC. A physically-based classification was chosen because data on these physical variables were available or could be modelled, and because the pattern of the physical environment is a reasonable surrogate for biological pattern, particularly at larger spatial scales. Classes within the classification were defined using multivariate clustering methods. These produce hierarchical classifications that enable the user to delineate environmental variation at different levels of detail and associated spatial scales.

"New Zealand’s land area has been divided into 500 land environments, each defined by their unique climate, topography, and soils. The extent to which indigenous vegetation is represented in these different land environments, and how that vegetation is formally protected, is described by ‘threatened environment’ categories. These categories can be monitored to help us understand the effects of land cover change on indigenous biodiversity.

This data set relates to the "Indigenous cover and protection in land environments" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website."

A spatial dataset identifying a set of environmental conditions that have potential to inhibit growth of newly-established woody vegetation such that it might not reach a ‘forest’ status (defined as greater than 30% cover of trees of 5 m height) within a 30-40 year timeframe.

Inclusions: temperature, moisture availability, edaphic conditions, coastal exposure, and land instability

Exclusions: herbivory, competition, external gene pools, availability of seed sources and dispersers, and also fire

This ELF layer is designed to provide a concise evidence source to guide decision making regarding the potential for naturally regenerating species to reach the criteria for Kyoto-compliant forest. Due to the variable quality in the source data used to compile this layer it should only be considered to provide guidance and should not be used as authoritative for forest eligibility/ineligibility under any government scheme.