New Zealand's Environment Reporting Series: The Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand
Description
This dataset shows the total irrigated agricultural land area across New Zealand for 2002 and 2017. Agricultural land irrigated in 2017 is broken down by types of irrigation systems and farm type.
Although it enables and improves farming, irrigation can also have adverse consequences relating to recreation, and can increase pollution and leaching of contaminants into waterways. Irrigation can affect the natural form and character of land (eg dry land to greener and wetter land), fishing, cultivation and food production, animal drinking water, water supply, commercial and industrial water use, and hydro-electric power generation. More irrigated land, and more water abstraction, can place increased pressure on river flows, as well as indirectly increasing pressure on land and fresh water by enabling increased agricultural intensity.
