Land use

Why we monitor land use

The Waikato region contains some of the most productive land in New Zealand and the world. The landscape and soils vary in versatility and productive capacity. Different types of land use affect our soil resources differently.

We monitor land use change to get information on where development pressures are likely to be greatest, and to help us identify policy responses to avoid or remedy damage to our soil and water resources.

What's happening?

The main land use types in the Waikato region are:

pastoral farming (53%)
indigenous vegetation (27%)
plantation forestry (12%)
urban areas (1%)
horticulture and cropping (less than 1%).

How we monitor

We measure the area in different land use types for the entire Waikato region.
The Ministry for the Environment intends to update the LCDB every 5 years. Waikato Regional Council's monitoring of changes in land use is dependent on the release of the updated LCDB datasets by the Ministry for the Environment.
The LCDB v5.0 data used to derive this indicator update was primarily derived from satellite imagery acquired during the summer of 2018/19. More information is available from the dedicated Land Cover Database.

Guidelines and standards

The LCDB gives a regional scale ‘snapshot’ of vegetation when the data were collected and should not be considered the definitive current vegetation cover.
The data were presented as percentage of total land area in the region by major land use type. However, the data do not allow for a breakdown of land use type by activity, for example, separating pastoral farming into different types such as dairy farming or sheep and beef farming.
Further indicator developments
In future this indicator may potentially be expanded to further delineate different land use classes and enterprise types such as dairy, drystock, and cropping.

Data and trends

The graph shows the main land use types in our region.
- Values of less than one per cent are graphed as one per cent.
- The land cover data presented in this indicator were acquired over the summer of 2018/19.
- View our map [JPG, 732 KB] of land use in the Waikato region.

View the data file

The link below points to an Excel spreadsheet that contains the source data to this indicator's graph and any additional data

Download the data file
12 KB

When this indicator is updated

Due to the time scale at which land use changes occur, it is unlikely that changes will be monitored any more frequently than 5-yearly. The updating of this indicator is also dependent on production of an updated LCDB dataset.

Quality control procedures

For information on data quality (lineage, positional accuracy, attribute accuracy, logical consistency and completeness) see the updated metadata for the LCDB available from the dedicated Land Cover Database (metadata).

Footnotes

The LCDB v5.0 dataset is a “public good” data set created by Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd and available under Creative Commons Attribution V4.0 International Licensing.
New Zealand Land Cover Database User Guide.

LCDB5 Class	Land use type
Not land	Other
Built up Area (settlement)	Urban
Urban Parkland/ Open space	Urban
Transport Infrastructure	Other
Surface Mine or Dump	Other
Sand or Gravel	Other
Landslide	Other
Permanent Snow and Ice	Other
Gravel or Rock	Other

Alpine Grass/Herbfield	Indigenous vegetation
Lake or Pond	Other
River	Other
Estuarine Open Water	Other
Short-rotation Cropland	Horticultural and cropping
Orchard, Vineyard or Other Perennial Crop	Horticultural and cropping
High Producing Exotic Grassland	Pastoral farming
Low Producing Grassland	Pastoral farming
Tall Tussock Grassland	Indigenous vegetation
Depleted Grassland	Indigenous vegetation

Herbaceous Freshwater Vegetation	Indigenous vegetation
Herbaceous Saline Vegetation	Indigenous vegetation
Flaxland	Indigenous vegetation
Fernland	Indigenous vegetation
Gorse and/or Broom	Other
Manuka and/or Kanuka	Indigenous vegetation
Broadleaved Indigenous Hardwoods	Indigenous vegetation
Sub Alpine Shrubland	Indigenous vegetation
Mixed Exotic Shrubland	Other
Matagouri or Grey Shrub	Indigenous vegetation

Mangrove	Indigenous vegetation
Forest- Harvested	Plantation forestry
Deciduous Hardwoods	Other
Indigenous Forest	Indigenous vegetation
Exotic Forest	Plantation forestry