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New Zealand land-use mapping

Land use has changed dramatically in both the North Island (Te Ika a Maui) and the South Island (Te Wai Pounamu) of New Zealand (Aotearoa) since the 'birth of the nation' in 1840, when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and the country came under British jurisdiction.

Land use has changed dramatically in both the North Island
(Te Ika a Maui) and the South Island (Te Wai Pounamu)
of New Zealand (Aotearoa) since the 'birth of the nation' in 1840,
when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and the country came
under British jurisdiction.

Land use has changed dramatically in New Zealand (Aotearoa) since the 'birth of the nation' in 1840, when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and the country came under British jurisdiction. Forest clearance and land development were characteristic of the early colonial phases.

As shown below, the present land use can be explained from historical and management factors.

Mapping by the LUCAS project focuses on changes between 1990 (the reference year), as well as 2008 and 2012, which are the beginning and the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Historical factors

  • Rapid changes have taken place in land use since the 1840s, but this is poorly documented in detail. The international reporting requirements mean that New Zealand needs the ability to map land-use changes in detail since the 1990s - a substantial undertaking for the LUCAS team.
  • There has been considerable afforestation since 1990: LUCAS maps show that 0.56 million hectares of forest have been planted. The precise location, size and production of the afforested areas are now known, as is the amount of carbon in post-1989 forests.

Management factors

  • New Zealand needs to account for carbon stock changes across all forest.
  • There is no national forest inventory: This means LUCAS has needed to initiate, develop and implement appropriate forest carbon inventories.
  • No previous national database/analysis system would meet the IPCC's Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF activities: one of LUCAS's aims is to develop and implement such a database to an operational stage.

Land use mapping by LUCAS

The objective of this workstream is to provide New Zealand-wide maps of land use as at 1990, 2008 and 2012. From the differences between these maps, land-use change maps can be derived.

Mapping is based on interpretation of both existing and future acquisitions of satellite imagery and aerial photography.

SPOT5

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text description).

Approach and requirements

The LUCAS methodology for mapping land use in the reference year 1990 follows best practice mapping procedures; details are given in a forthcoming New Zealand LULUCF Mapping Manual.

The maps for 2008 and 2012 national land use allow the identification of changes in areal extent and location of land-use changes. Part of the process is to assess the accuracy of classification for representative regions of New Zealand.

The goal is to achieve a nationally consistent land use mapping programme which meets the IPCC's Good Practice Guidance (GPG) for LULUCF.

This means the inclusion of established protocols for:

  • spatial data standardisation and calibration
  • data processing and interpretation
  • associated quality control procedures.

Mapping shows the areal extent and spatial location of land use. When combined with mapping in subsequent years, the changes in extent and spatial location of land-use changes can be shown precisely.

The resulting detailed land-use maps will available from the LUCAS team for all-of-government partners in the project, with a resolution of 8 km x 8 km pixels. Low-resolution maps are on this website for 1990 and 2008.

 

Last updated: 3 August 2009