Environmental modelling

This report reviews greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change mitigation data and models used in Aotearoa New Zealand. We make some recommendations on modelling capacity, data availability and accessibility and oversight/synthesis of the different…

In community    
modelling our future can     
take us to new heights.     

The public and private sectors face important strategic decisions about low-emissions transitional pathways. Such decisions require sound evidence, with input from experts…

Land-use modelling    
needs research, data, networks,    
and sustained funding.    

New Zealand faces the challenge of using our land in ways that are not only resilient to future pressures and sustain our rural communities…

NZ models need
collaboration, data, 
and development.

 

As New Zealand charts its course toward a low-emissions economy, the quality of energy-sector and multi-sector modelling is becoming increasingly important. This paper outlines why models are useful for…

The analysis by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) uses an appropriate modelling framework that meets global best practice standards in most areas, and the modelling exercises meet the requirements set out by…

India’s economy is booming, driving up electric power consumption to unprecedented levels. The nation’s installed electricity capacity, which increased fivefold in the past three decades, is expected to triple over the next 20 years. At…

Using an economy-wide model, we evaluate the impact of policies to meet South Korea’s Paris pledge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 37% relative those under business as usual (BAU) in 2030. Simulated BAU…

Climate matters but    
all climate models lead to    
like outcomes for land.    

Climate Changes, Impacts and Implications (CCII) was a four-year project (ending in September 2016) designed to tackle a broad research question:

What are the predicted…

To meet our targets   
Help horticulture to grow   
Let forests respond.   

This dataset updates the one developed in Olssen et al, (2012). This is a panel dataset giving expected forest profitability at time of planting across New Zealand for the years 1990-2013. As well as updating…

Yields go up – and down    
at times. But farmers respond    
and now we know how.    

In contrast to most economic drivers of land-use change, climate-related drivers display substantial geographic variation. Accounting…

Ruminating on   
methane. Land use will change and   
someone’s gotta pay.

I use simulations from the Land Use in Rural New Zealand model to consider mitigation for different classes of sheep-beef farms under climate policy. Farmers…

We investigate the role that climate plays in determining rural land values. We estimate a Ricardian model using a national meshblock level cross section of land values. A Ricardian model stipulates that the value of…

LC_All_R2P68_Clip4 is an ArcGIS feature layer that gives detailed land use for the Lake Rotorua catchment. This map was provided by NIWA. ROTAN, NIWA’s catchment water model, works from this map.

Data documentation includes details about…

Our goal is to predict which forests are harvestable in New Zealand each year, and the stumpage profits attained from harvesting. We begin by documenting how Motu updates the 2008 Land Use in Rural New…

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…

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’…

This data gives the land parcels for the Lake Rotorua catchment. This data was derived by NIWA and was provided to Motu as part of the design and building of NMANAGER.

Data documentation includes details about…

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…

Constructed from the Rural Economies database (DDLU10025), the Land Use Rural Panel (LURP) database separates pasture land into dairy and sheep & beef land according to stock numbers. The original dataset determined stocking rates using…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

A dataset on estimated forest profit expectations. Data on net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) are included; data on equal annual equivalent and land expectation value can be derived. The data…

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…

This dataset contains dairy stocking rates and milk solid production rates in New Zealand, by territorial authority, from 1998-2008.

Please cite this data as Livestock Improvement Corporation. 2010. “Dairy Data from LIC,” obtained by Motu Research…

Motu completed land-use simulations for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in November 2013 using the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model. The original model results were based on an initial land-use map…

This paper reports the latest simulation results from the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model.

The LURNZ model produces dynamic paths of rural land-use change, land-use maps, and maps of land-use change. LURNZ can…

A dataset on estimated forest profit expectations. Data on net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) are included; data on equal annual equivalent and land expectation value can be derived. The data…

Private land use decisions may have far-reaching (and often unintended) effects on their environment. Sometimes these are positive, such as the carbon sequestration performed by forestry. However, many typical effects of agricultural land uses in…

Policies that create the opportunity for private landowners to receive carbon credits from reforestation, or “carbon farming,” will change the relative value of land uses for landowners, potentially having an impact on land-use decisions and…

In recent years, countries have begun implementing programs employing market-based instruments for delivering ecological services, rather than regulatory instruments. For governments, such policies have the potential for improving the cost-effectiveness of delivering these services, correcting…

New Zealand has taken a progressive step in developing a national trading system for greenhouse gas emissions that includes the land-use sector. The Permanent Forest Sink Initiative (PFSI) creates a mechanism for private landowners to…

Market-based climate policies have the potential to create important new opportunities for land management for indigenous and communal landowners, while providing environmental benefits. Yet these policies have been designed with an incomplete understanding of land-use…

Policy enabling tropical forests to approach their potential contribution to global-climate-change mitigation requires forecasts of land use and carbon storage on a large scale over long periods. In this paper, we present an integrated modeling…

This paper is part of Rethinking Global Land Use in an Urban Era, published by MIT Press in their series of Strungmann Forum Reports, which provide state-of-the-art summaries of Ernst Strungmann Forum themes. Rising demand…

The Department of Conservation's Public Conservation Areas 2014, covers the spatial representation of DOC's management units defined by various acts of parliament and legislation. The attributes in this dataset are derived from the (NaPALIS) National…

The opportunity for private landowners to receive carbon credits from reforestation, or "carbon farming," will change the relative value of land uses for landowners, potentially having an impact on land-use decisions. We constructed a spatial…

Contract report by EcoClimate Consortium: Integrated Research on the Economics of Climate Change Impacts Adaptation and Mitigation, commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The report outlines climate change scenarios projected for the periods 2020-2049…

This report was commissioned by SCION Next Generation Biomaterials

It made up part of Scion's reports on New Zealand's bioenergy options from forestry. 

All reports, including CDs of supporting analyses, are available for purchase from Scion. 

This report was commissioned as Landcare Research Contract Report: LC809/033

GOAL

Determine the areas of indigenous forest/shrubland and exotic shrubland types that have regenerated since 1990, and that could potentially regenerate on marginal erosion-prone lands where economic returns…

This paper was commissioned for the GNS Science Consultancy Report 2010/154 by GNS Science, Wellington. It is a confidential report. To view it, contact the authors.

This paper documents the development of new land-use intensity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions modules for the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model. These modules translate simulated land-use outcomes into measures of rural…

Land is an important social and economic resource. Knowing the spatial distribution of land use and the expected location of future land-use change is important to inform decision makers.

This paper documents and validates the baseline…

Rural land use is important for New Zealand's economic and environmental outcomes. Using a dynamic econometric model and recent New Zealand data, we estimate the response of land use to changing economic returns as proxied…

Private land-use decisions are critical for a broad spectrum of environmental and social outcomes, ranging from water quality and climate change to rural income distribution. I use a large dataset of the land-use decisions of…

This paper documents the first version of the Land Use in Rural New Zealand Model (LURNZv1). It describes the overall modelling approach, the database underlying the model, and the construction of each module within the…

This document outlines the development of the dynamic functions and simple algorithms that make up the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) land-use intensity module. The module includes stocking rate functions for dairy, sheep,…

Several different New Zealand economic models produce measures of rural economic activity that have greenhouse gas implications. For climate change analysis, models need to translate economic activity into greenhouse gas emissions.

This document estimates functions and…

This paper uses valuation data from Quotable Value New Zealand to examine changes in the value of the rural land in New Zealand between 1989 and 2003.

The value of rural land reflects the profitability of…

Carbon sequestration in plantation forests provides the main means by which New Zealand will meet its international climate change obligations in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012). However, without active policy, forests…

Policy enabling tropical forests to approach their potential contribution to global-climate-change mitigation requires forecasts of land use and carbon storage on a large scale over long periods.

In this paper, we present an integrated modeling methodology…

Under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, foresters can obtain carbon units as their forests sequester carbon. If they sell these units as they are earned, the units must be repurchased when the forest is…

Rural land use in New Zealand is an important driver of economic activity and has clear implications for the environment, including for biodiversity, climate change emissions and water quality. The spatial distribution and aggregate shares…

Rural land is a key input into agricultural production and a key source of wealth in New Zealand
Relatively little known about the drivers of rural land values in New Zealand

A report for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

This paper documents the production of land-use maps and measures of farming intensity for 1996, 2008 and 2020. These maps and measures of farming intensity are produced…

Land cover and use are critical for climate change, water quality and use, biodiversity and soil conservation as well as important drivers of rural economic activity and the evolution of rural communities. The Land Use…

In this paper, we construct a dataset of annual expected forest profits in New Zealand from 1990-2008 at a fine spatial resolution. We do not include land values in any of our profit calculations. We…

Some problems are too complex to be addressed with all the detail with which they are encountered in reality. Addressing these kinds of problems requires the use of a simplified representation of reality: a model.…