Soils & land use
Healthy soils and appropriate land–use underpin sustainable primary production and contribute to New Zealand’s ability to neutralise greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing demand for urban development or intensified pastoral agriculture is putting pressure on land, water and soils, especially as most of our soils are of low natural fertility.
Integrated catchment management processes are important to managing water resources, particularly where there is conflicting demands and outcomes.
We maintain nationally significant databases including the National Soils Database (NSD), the Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI), and a number of applications for soil quality and land resource management, and assessing potential land–use options such as suitability for pastoral farming or vineyards.
We are agents for remote–sensing images from a variety of land resource satellites, and research innovative applications for these e.g., EcoSat.