News

Using nationwide geospatial data to build a comprehensive understanding of public water supply, quality and inequity in New Zealand

20 June 2023

Reliable supply of safe drinking water is vital for human health. Despite this, there is no consistent nationwide spatial dataset of water distribution zones (WDZ) for Aotearoa New Zealand (A-NZ). In this talk, we will outline the development of a nationwide geospatial dataset of WDZ using data compiled from the 67 district and city councils in A-NZ. We will also outline several early use cases for the WDZ dataset.

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Sensing Water: The Rongowai airborne remote sensing mission for GNSS-Reflectometry across New Zealand

20 March 2023

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), emit radio signals in the L-band to enable precise positioning on the Earth’s surface. GNSS has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives, underpinning location-based technologies from traffic routing to precision agriculture. These GNSS “signals of opportunity” have been used in novel space borne missions such as CyGNSS (Cyclone GNSS), which is primarily designed to observe the ocean surface under tropical cyclone systems. However, signals reflected from the land surface have been found to sensitive to soil moisture and surface water, providing a valuable additional source of data.

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Mātauranga Maori Framework for Surveillance (MMFS) for Plant Pathogens

14 December 2022

In the past, there has been a disconnect and little collaboration between the people and organizations doing work on plant pathogens that cause myrtle rust and kauri dieback. This has stymied progress in the management of plant pathogens and diseases, and is still unclear where they occur or not. Here we introduce the principles and methodologies of the Mātauranga Māori Framework for surveillance (MMFS) for plant pathogens.

Video recording available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Czj2fB_1iU&list=PLJymSfBIuEWKYLJbi6LzyiRXKtAQBbcH3&index=4

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Te Kete Kōrero o Ōhinemutu; Geospatial tool for community & Māori-led planning

16 September 2022

Te Kete Kōrero o Ōhinemutu is a Mātauranga Māori map-based tool co-created by the community of Ōhinemutu and the Geospatial Research Institute Toi Hangarau. Ōhinemutu is a village with deep connection to Ngāti Whakaue. Built on the shores of Lake Rotorua, it is famed for its geothermal features and Te Papa-i-Ouru marae. Te Kete Kōrero o Ōhinemutu has been built to hold and share historical narratives of Ōhinemutu as well as current community initiatives. The range of narratives includes traditional, historic, scientific and lived experiences.

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