New online access to environmental data

Powerful new resource provides online access to important environmental data.
New Zealand has a powerful new online resource to assist people in understanding its diverse natural environments and resources.

With the launch of the Land Resource Information System (LRIS) Portal (http://lris.scinfo.org.nz), individuals working in regional and central government, industry, research and education now have quick and easy access to environment data held by Landcare Research. These geospatial datasets, many of which are considered of national significance, can be used for creating maps, analysis, modelling and generally for finding out about New Zealand’s environments and land resources.

The information available includes records from the New Zealand land resource inventory, data underpinning the land environments NZ (LENZ) data set, fundamental soils layers, regional soil databases and digital elevation models. These data can be used in a diverse range of applications. Examples include catchment and resource management, national monitoring of carbon sources and sinks, studies of climate change, and preparation of farm plans for land managers.

Built using software provided by Koordinates Limited (http://koordinates.com), the LRIS Portal marks a major shift to free on-line access to geospatial information facilitated by Backbone funding from the Foundation for Science Research and Technology.

“Making data collected and managed by Landcare Research available to a wider audience through an easy to use facility is an important first step by Landcare Research to support New Zealand’s government-wide programme to open and reuse government data”, says David Medyckyj-Scott, LRIS Portal Project Leader.

Designed to make the data usable as well as accessible, each data layer comes with metadata (‘data about data’), supporting documents and easy to understand data use licenses. Users can select from a variety of data formats and, using a map-based interface, sub-set the geographic extent of the data so they only download data for the area they are interested. This means users no longer need to store large datasets themselves, they just take the bits they need when they need them.

The amount and type of data available in the portal will be added to significantly in the future.

“We have a list of data we have indentified that can be added to the portal in the coming months” says James Barringer, who manages the data in the portal.

“Many of these datasets haven’t been available publically before but we know they will be of considerable value”.

The portal forms part of greater efforts to create a new repository of authoritative New Zealand science datasets and information.

ENDS