Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

These spreadsheets provide various Statistics New Zealand data on housing and age (see ‘Data access’ for brief abstracts; and see detailed documentation for more information).

The Department of Conservation (DoC) land register is a GIS database of conservation land, covering the New Zealand mainland and offshore islands. Conservation land includes Crown land held under the Conservation Act, Reserves Act, National Parks Act, Wildlife Act, Marine Reserves Act, and the Marine Mammals Protection Act. It excludes seabed or foreshore not set aside for a particular purpose. The map also includes private or Maori land that has legal protection through a conservation covenant or Nga Whenua Rahui kawenata, a lease to the Minister of Conservation, agreement under s76 Reserves Act, easement held by the Minister of Conservation, sanctuary refuge or management area under the Wildlife Act. In addition, the map includes other conservancy land for which DOC has information (mostly local authority reserves). The database contains approximately 18,000 polygons referred to as “conservation units”. Polygon areas are recorded in hectares to 4 decimal places, but are not very accurate (Froude, 1999). (Motu restricted dataset 6.)

The forestry profitability data is measured by either net present values (NPV) or average annual cashflow of the NPV, and classified by 10 Wood Supply Regions, 4 different slope levels and 7 different distance-to-market levels. Linked the panel data with GIS maps, a time series of potential forestry profitability maps are created for the further usage in improving LURNZ.

Land Cover Database 2 (LCDB2) is a thematic classification of 43 land cover and land use classes covering mainland New Zealand, near shore islands and the Chatham Islands. The first Land Cover Database (LCDB1) was completed in 2000 using SPOT satellite imagery acquired over the summer of 1996/97. LCDB2 was released in July 2004 and used Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery acquired over the summer of 2001/02. This release also reports land cover/land use changes for the five-year period between the two acquisitions of satellite imagery. (Motu restricted dataset 1.)

LENZ (Land Environments of New Zealand) provides an environmental classification for New Zealand. It identifies climatic and landform factors likely to influence the distribution of species, and uses these factors to define a landscape classification that groups together sites that have similar environmental conditions. One important advantage of this approach, as opposed to directly mapping land cover for example, is its ability to predict the potential character of sites where natural ecosystems have been substantially modified. (Motu Restricted dataset 4.)

Each polygon was classified on a discrete scale from 1 to 8. Class 1 land is best for sustained agricultural production, while class 8 land has severely limited uses (Froude, 1999). Classes 1 to 4 are considered suitable for multiple land uses including arable cropping, while classes 5 to 7 are only suitable for pastoral grazing and forestry. Class 8 is not suitable for any productive use. LUC subclasses and units further classify land based on dominant limitation and management requirements. (Motu restricted dataset 3.)

LUNZ is a comprehensive land use dataset for New Zealand that was created by Landcare Research using information from AgriBase, LCDB2, LENZ and MAF monitor farm types. The dataset was created as part of the CLUES project (Woods et al, 2006). The smallest unit of observation is a sub-farm: a piece of land on a specific farm with a unique land cover type. As AgriBase is not comprehensive, land use for farms with missing information had to be inferred using other sources of information. (Motu restricted dataset 2.)

This GIS dataset combines information from the LUNZ map (created by Landcare Research Ltd), LCDB2 and ownership data: for each LUNZ polygon, Maribeth Todd, the creator of this dataset, added information on its 1996 land cover and land ownership. (Motu restricted dataset 9950.)

This data set was created by Maribeth Todd. She combined information from the slope map from LENZ and the Land Use New Zealand map (created by Landcare). The attributes of the final map includes all attributes from LUNZ as well as maximum, minimum, median slopes for each polygon (i.e. each sub-farm of LUNZ). (Motu restricted dataset 9951.)

This data provides annual information from each local council between 1991 and 2008. Local council revenues are fragmented by rates, whereas expenditures are fragmented by service and other trading/consolidated activities. Operating budgets for refuse, water, sewerage included, as well as equity. Searchable index of data notes by council and problem type.

The dataset has two GIS layers. The first layer is the potential farm by class and by region map in 2002. It is derived using sheep-beef farm class and region definitions from Meat and Wool Ltd and dairy region definitions from MAF. The second layer uses the first one as a base map to present the average (1990 to 2007) potential profitability (EBIT per ha) for being a farm of a certain class in a certain region.

This dataset includes demographic data of the Galapagos Islands in English and Spanish. It contains information between 1950 and 2001 for Galapagos Islands, but time period could vary for different variables.

The Corax Mobile data layer of New Zealand cadastral boundaries (derived from data held by Land Information New Zealand) and GIS shape files of Department of Conservation (DoC) land, other Crown land, and Māori land were intersected to give an ‘ownership’ shape file showing broad land-ownership information: DoC land, other publically owned or covenanted land, Māori land, and privately owned land. (Motu restricted dataset 5.)

This dataset is a useful tool for determining rural land values. Baisden (2006) developed indices designed to estimate the biological productivity of land when used for pastoral and forestry production. He used a ‘Storie Index’ approach, where indices of co-limiting soil and climate factors are multiplied together to give a productivity index. The Storie Index approach has been actively in use in California for over 60 years. For more information download the dataset documentation. (Motu restricted dataset 7.)

This documentation was undertaken as part of Motu’s Foundation for Research, Science and Technology-funded “Adjustment and Inequality” research programme. The document presents New Zealand population census unit record data between 1986 and 2001. It includes an introduction to the population census and also brief summary tables for variables used in the research programme.

The database contains information on New Zealand property sales and valuations. Sales data is available from 1981 to 2006 at a quarterly level for TLAs and annually at MB and AU level. Valuation data is available annually at MB, AU and TLA level from 1990 to 2006. Values for each unit will change when new valuation or sales information available. Motu also holds copies of customised data for Auckland region, and for rural land uses.

This data provides annual information for each region in NZ between 1991 and 2008. Regional council revenues are fragmented by rates, whereas expenditures are fragmented by services and other trading/consolidated activities. Operating budgets for refuse, water, sewerage (for unitary councils), environmental monitoring, bio-security, rivers (drainage included), as well as equity. Searchable index of data notes by council and problem type.

This dataset provides sheep and beef farm information on area and livestock numbers, capital structure, expenditure, gross margin of livestock, income and sale prices from 1980 to 2008. This data was gathered from Meat and Wool Economic Service (MWES) surveys. The dataset is classified by 5 regions and by 8 classes, which are defined by Meat and Wool Economic Service. (Motu restricted dataset 9954.)