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Greater public access to environmental databases
Land Cover Database mapping of Mt Taranaki: satellite image (top)
to land cover boundaries (middle) to land cover database (bottom).
Two fundamental environmental databases have been given a new lease of life following the relicensing of the Land Cover Database and the Land Environments New Zealand classification.
Both are spatial databases containing geographic boundaries and descriptions of the types of land cover and the environment they exist in. On 1 July, the Ministry for the Environment made the digital maps available online, for free and with a permissive Creative Commons licence.
The Land Cover Database is a thematic classification of 43 land cover and land-use classes. Land Environments New Zealand is a classification of 15 climate, landform and soil variables chosen for their relevance to biological distributions.
The databases are already used by central and local government agencies for analysis and planning so they can make better management decisions for our environment.
Ministry for the Environment’s Len Brown says the relicensing will promote the free exchange of environmental data, allowing more people access, use and benefit from the data. The move is part of a strategy to make public sector data more accessible.
“Improving access to the Government’s spatial information is a goal of the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy that the Ministry is committed to supporting. The new licence will allow the public to freely share and distribute environmental data and information without having to ask for permission if they want to use the data in different ways.
“It also means we will get more value out of the investment the Government made to create the databases. The real value comes from the uses the data is being put to. The more users there are, the more uses the data is put to, the greater the return,” Brown says.
The databases were developed over five years ago and were being distributed under licence by Terralink International and Landcare Research. Their distribution licence agreements were due to expire and the most suitable replacement was to use open content licences.
Brown points out that the internet has developed a capacity to deliver large amounts of data to consumers which did not exist five years ago when the Land Cover Database and Land Environment New Zealand were first made available and when CDs and postage were the accepted distribution mechanisms.
He says Terralink International and Landcare Research see the potential growth of the user-base as an opportunity for them to provide more value-added services.
“A Creative Commons licence removes restrictions on the use of the data while allowing the Crown to retain its copyright over the databases. This encourages users to find new and innovative uses for the data. It even allows users to create derivative products and solutions that generate new revenue.
“Since announcing the new licence arrangements, the Ministry has been overwhelmed with the positive feedback from the user community,” Brown says.
The Ministry will be using an existing online service from Koordinates.com, a New Zealand company, to distribute the data. For more information see www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/land/land-cover-dbase/index.html
