World Layers

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.

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.

The User Guide can be found at data.mfe.govt.nz/document/123-river-environment-cl...

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, and the River Environment Classification can be found at www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/environmental-...

To view the map of vulnerable catchments, click the orange 'plus’ icon above.

The Government has committed $100 million over 10 years through the Freshwater Improvement Fund to support initiatives which improve the management of fresh water within quality and quantity limits.

The fund focuses on projects that will make a significant and measurable improvement to rivers, lakes, streams, groundwater and wetlands, with priority on the most vulnerable catchments.

This dataset shows catchments that have been classified as vulnerable (as defined by the criteria for the Freshwater Improvement Fund).

"River flow refers to the quantity of water passing a point in the river over a certain amount of time. Different rivers have different flow patterns, such as sharp peak flows following rain with low flows in between, or high spring flows from snow melt. These flow characteristics affect how much water is available for irrigation, drinking water, hydro–electric power generation, and recreational activities such as fishing and boating. River flows are also very important for maintaining the health and form of a waterway.

This dataset relates to the "Geographic pattern of natural river flows" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website. "

For more information, refer to the March 2015 report: 'Hydrological indices for national environmental reporting' www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20....

"This data describes the location of the different types of soil in New Zealand using the New Zealand Soil Classification.

This data set relates to the "Soils" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website."

The 15 class Benthic-Optimised Marine Environment Classification (BOMEC). The BOMEC divides the benthic environment into ecosystem types. These are grouped into three inshore groups, three continental shelf groups, and nine deeper-water groups. Each group represents areas with similar environmental variables, such as depth, temperature, salinity, and suspended sediment. The classification system considers the distributions of eight benthic taxonomic groups: asteroids, bryozoans, benthic foraminiferans, octocorals, polychaetes, matrix-forming scleratinian corals, sponges, and benthic fish.

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...

Irrigation is used to support land use, particularly in areas with low or seasonal rainfall. Irrigation can improve the productivity of land for farming activity, and support amenity or recreational land uses within urban environments.Irrigation can also alter the natural character of our landscapes (eg change dry land to greener and wetter land), and can increase nutrient (phosphorus and nitrogen) runoff and leaching into waterways.

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.

Summary report available at www.mfe.govt.nz/fresh-water/technical-guidance-and...

"A unit of rock or sediment is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water.
Aquifers may occur at different depths in the same location. The map shows the areas of New Zealand’s land surface above one or more aquifers. The aquifer boundaries were described by White (2001), and some boundaries were updated by Moreau and Bekele (2015), using information provided by regional councils and from Lovett and Cameron (2015). The map has 153 polygons (aquifer outlines), some of which have more than one aquifer.
Methods for defining aquifer boundaries generally rely on knowing the locations and characteristics of productive wells, and using geological maps to identify water–bearing materials. In many cases, these boundaries are also influenced by management attributes such as regional or property boundaries, and surface water catchments (Lovett & Cameron, 2015).
This dataset relates to the ""Location and area of New Zealand’s aquifers"" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.
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