Key Points | Report Card | Technical Information | Data
This page contains technical details on how and where we collect this information.
On this page:
What this indicator is about
This indicator measures the public and private ownership of the Waikato Region’s coastline. The results are presented as privately owned, publicly owned or road edge (assumed public ownership), and have been split into the three main coastal regions – West Coast, West Coromandel and East Coromandel.
Why we monitor Coastline Ownership
The coast is widely perceived as a public open space, which should be accessible to everyone. Public access is highlighted as a matter of national importance in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS). Our Regional Coastal Plan (RCP) emphasises that public access within the Coastal Marine Area (CMA) - along the foreshore and across the water - should not be unduly restricted. Access within the CMA is dependent largely on access to the coast being available. In New Zealand, no common law of right of access exists over privately occupied land. Public access to the coast (and other areas) therefore relies on the provision of public areas such as access strips, walkways, reserves and conservation areas, or agreements with landowners.
This indicator provides a measure of publicly and privately owned land adjacent to the coast. The presence of public coastal land can be used to evaluate likely levels of public access, and the availability of highly valued coastal space.
Esplanade areas have a number of purposes including recreation, public access and conservation (including water quality and the mitigation of natural hazards). These purposes are outlined in section 229 of the Resource Management Act 1991.
Where and how we collect the data
Monitoring sites
The coastline of the Waikato Region.
Monitoring frequency
Every 10 years.
Monitoring history
This is the first time Environment Waikato has mapped the coastline ownership for the Region. The Core Record System (CRS) information used was current at August 2002. This information is purchased from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). Environment Waikato does not hold any historical data on coastal ownership. Future work could include investigating old records of coastal ownership to examine past trends.
Measurement technique
This indicator is measured solely through the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) using the CRS data and specific GIS tools and methods.
How this indicator is compiled
The process for generating this indicator is very GIS intensive. The following steps were undertaken in the GIS:
- From Environment Waikato’s corporate GIS database, the 1:50,000 coastline was taken and split into three main regions – West Coast, West Coromandel Coast (to the point west of Port Jackson) and the East Coromandel Coast.
- A 100 m merged buffer was generated for each coastal region.
- For each coastal region:
- Cadastral parcels from the CRS were found that intercepted or ‘touched’ the 100 m buffer around the coast. These are the coastal parcels.
- Possible unique values for the PURPOSE_1 field of the CRS were analysed and grouped into publicly owned, ambiguous (where ownership seemed unclear) and privately owned (all NULL values). See Table 1 below for possible PURPOSE_1 field values considered to indicate public ownership.
- The coastal parcels were then split into these three groupings and merged based on this attribute.
- The coastal edge of these parcel groupings was then digitised and attributed as either private, public or ambiguously owned (such as Museum, Sanitary Works and Teachers Residence). The CRS_road GIS layer was also used to determine if a road edge met the coastline and this was attributed as a road edge.
- Once the three coastal regions had been captured with respect to public, private, ambiguous or road edge, the length of each segment was calculated using the GIS tools.
- The coastline within harbours was analysed by type of ownership for interest as well.
- Access database query functions were then used to sum lengths of coastline by the types of ownership.
Table 1
| Possible PURPOSE_1 field values considered to indicate public ownership |
| Cemetery Reserve |
| Crown Land Reserved from Sale (Marginal Strip) |
| Domain |
| Esplanade Reserve |
| Foreshore |
| Foreshore Reserve |
| Government Purpose Reserve (Wildlife Management) |
| Historic Reserve |
| Local Purpose Reserve |
| Nature Reserve |
| Parking Reserve |
| Purposes of a Road (for instance, a ‘paper’ road – not actually formed but designated as a road corridor) |
| Recreation Area |
| Recreation Ground |
| Recreation Reserve |
| Road Reserve |
| Scenic and Historic Reserve |
| Scenic Reserve |
| State Forest |
| State Forest Park |
| Vesting a Reserve |
| Whangamata Domain |
| Wildlife Management Reserve |
| Wildlife Refuge |
Guidelines and standards
None relevant to this indicator.
Limitations
The coastal edge of the CRS did not necessarily match with coastline information captured in the 1:50,000 topographic dataset (the NZMS260 series map sheets). However, this remains the best way of measuring the length of coastal ownership, as CRS parcel boundaries are the legally gazetted borders of ownership in New Zealand. Care is taken to describe ownership percentages or actual lengths in greater detail by using no decimal places.
Natural shoreline change at soft coastlines such as sandy beaches will affect the accuracy of the data. For example, where coastal reserves marked on the CRS have been eroded by natural processes, there may be no public land remaining between the CMA and private properties (for example, this has occurred at Buffalo Beach in the Coromandel). Similarly, natural shoreline accretion may increase the extent of public land fronting private properties close to the sea.
Further indicator developments
No changes are planned for this indicator. However, reducing the percentage of coastline classed as ambiguous ownership could be an improvement.
When this indicator is updated
This indicator is updated every 10 years.
More information
Useful links
- Ministry for the Environment - Environmental indicator programme – Coasts
- Department of Conservation - Marine and Coastal Conservation - New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (PDF listed in the marine and coastal links section).
Contact person
Coastal Earth Scientist - Resource Information Group, Environment Waikato
Quality control procedures
The format of the CRS data is detailed on the Terralink NZ Ltd website. The CRS data quality is inherited from the LINZ base data.
The valuation data is sourced from the individual Territorial Authorities. Environment Waikato does not maintain, update or amend any valuation data details. However when errors are spotted, business processes are in place to raise these with the appropriate Territorial Authorities and their Valuation Service Provider (VSP) for correction.
The merging of the CRS and Valuation data is a simple database join exercise. The relationship files used to match the CRS parcels to property valuation are created and maintained by Environment Waikato (EW).
The loading, maintenance and management of all of the above data is carried out according to the ISO 9001:2000 quality system standard held by EW’s Environmental Monitoring Programme.
Related indicators