Land environments
National Outcome 2: Achieve the sustainable use of land resources and their ecosystem services across catchments and sectors.
Land resources include the soil’s dynamic physical, chemical and biological ‘systems’, and the land cover, topography and hydrology in which the soil is situated. Land resources sustain essential services such as primary production, ecosystem services (e.g. clean water, fertile soils) and aesthetic benefits upon which New Zealand’s economy, identity and brand are based. Achieving the appropriate management of these resources is a major economic opportunity for New Zealand.
Effective management of land resources requires improved knowledge of their variability and change over time and across catchments and landscapes (natural, managed and urban), their response to human impacts, and potential environmental limits. Improving knowledge assets will help ensure land and its ecosystem services are sustainably allocated and used by:
- Central and local government in policy development and operations
- Sectors in refining land use choices and practices for sustainable
- intensification
- Regional government in discharging responsibilities for environmental standards and protection
- Central government in meeting international reporting obligations
This is an area in which our soils and land science capabilities are complemented by our informatics skills in accessing and analysing land information, and making it accessible in appropriate ways. E-Research and e-Business technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to use such data to inform land-use practices through a variety of media.