Reviewing the use of the LUC system in a regulatory context
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has reviewed how the Land Use Capability (LUC) system is being used in a regulatory context.
The LUC system has been part of New Zealand’s land management for more than 70 years. It classifies land into categories based on biophysical factors, such as geology, soil, slope, erosion and vegetation. It was designed to support soil conservation in an agricultural context.
Although the LUC system was not intended to address modern environmental management challenges, it is now used in three pieces of regulation:
- the National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL)
- as a basis for the Erosion Susceptibility Classification (ESC) in the National Environmental Standard for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF)
- the Climate Change Response Act (CCRA).
The Commissioner’s review finds that the LUC system lacks sufficient robustness for regulatory decision-making – owing largely to its use of information that lacks detail and is outdated. Advances in geospatial technology now provide high-quality data collection and modelling capabilities that can better support land management and environmental regulation.
As a result, the Commissioner recommends that the Government should:
- not use the current LUC system as the basis of future regulatory controls
- invest in improving datasets that underpin land use regulation and ensure they are publicly available and affordable
- modernise the existing ESC and LUC systems and develop fit-for-purpose models for specific regulatory purposes
- prioritise improvements in environmental data collection in areas where better information is most urgently needed.