April 2009
New Zealand prefers federated
information to SDI
Sharon Cottrell
General Manager, Customer Services
Land Information New Zealand
Can you elaborate on Land Information
New Zealand's (LINZ) online
services?
Our mandate is to collect and maintain topographic
data on 1:50,000 scale and at further
smaller scales. Users can put requests for
data online. Anybody can get a license to
search the system on payment because the
system is maintained entirely by user fees.
Surveyors can also lodge new data in the
database, for example new cadastre boundaries
if there is a sub-division of a parcel. We
have a security system where we can get to
know who is doing what. There are business
rules in the system to see if the data fits into it
or not and to keep the cadastre accurate and
then database is updated.
Is there an issue of traditional land
holdings, for instance that of Maoris?
I wouldn’t call it an issue but it is about different
land tenure system. Maoris hold lands
communally and they do not have individual
titles. They follow the Torrens System of land
title. But we do register Maori land titles in a
general land register as well. Government has
a policy that Maori heartland should continue
to be held by Maoris.
New Zealand has rugged terrain. How
is the ruggedness of the terrain, two
dimensional topo map and land ownership
map harmonised?
Our cadastral mapping started about 150
years ago and some of the technologies were
primitive then. Most of the remote areas, particularly
the rugged regions of New Zealand,
have not been surveyed for over 100 years.
Boundaries in such areas often do not match
at all. Over time, we have tried to improve that
but most of the times, we have relied on private
sector. We provide data to them in both
topographic database and cadastral database.
How does LINZ update its legacy data
and systems? Is the entire country
streamlined?
Everything has been digitised. It took about
two years for us to convert all the paper data
to digital data and images. The survey plans
were converted to digital data and land titles
and current titles were converted into live data
and historic title, which gives the history of
land data ownership. Those documents have
been imaged, including the mutations. Pick up
any parcel and its entire history is shown.
There is a link, in most cases, between the
parcel and history of ownership.
What is the primary source of data -
aerial photographs or satellite imagery?
We are in the process of moving from aerial
photography to satellite imagery. We recently
signed a contract with DigitalGlobe to provide
us with satellite imagery. With this, we get better
value for money and we can improve currency.
LIS has been the precursor to establish
SDI in many countries. What about New
Zealand?
We do not have a formal SDI as such. We have
a geospatial strategy for all the governments
and a geospatial office to implement the strategy.
Rather than an SDI, we concentrate on
'federated geospatial information'. The intent
is to ensure all the geospatial information collected
by the government is made available
and is interoperable. I think we have quite a
long way to go. We also do not have a formal
policy on SDI.
What is the scenario of data sharing in
NZ?
One of the objectives of our Geospatial Strategy
is to encourage data sharing. We also
have Crown Research Institute to collect and
maintain spatial data for research purposes.
We do have a policy framework for government
held information, which does encourage
'collect once and use many times' but we have
lot more to do to make that easy. We also
need to ensure proper interoperability and
standards and metadata across all the platforms.
Do you use OGC or ISO specifications?
We have been working with Australia to develop
metadata standards. There is an umbrella
organisation called Australia New Zealand
Land Information Council. It follows OGC
specifications. LINZ has not taken the membership
of OGC.
Are users integrating your data with
Google Maps and other similar online
maps?
Yes, and that is fine with us. The biggest challenge
there is that we collect data for a particular
purpose and people use it for a variety of
purposes. We need to educate people on the
limitations of data. An application that is
particularly suitable for 1:50,000 data is not
suitable for 1:10,000 resolution. The government
is keen to encourage and develop
private sector and made it clear that 1:50,000
is the core dataset and the larger scale would
be developed by private industry.
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