Poor data holding New Zealand back in fight against environmental challenges, new report shows

Poor information hits ability to fight environmental challenges

Inconsistent, inadequate and missing environmental data is holding New Zealand back from making timely and cost-effective decisions, according to a new report led by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton.

The report released in July said while large amounts of data is collected, it is often fragmented, difficult to access and not used to its full potential.

Simon Upton told Nine to Noon that the information problem isn't just affecting New Zealand's ability to tackle environmental problems, but also extends to decision making around infrastructure, housing subdivisions and land zoning.

Upton said currently every time an entity - such as the infrastructure commission or large power companies - want to start a project, they're starting on a bespoke basis - pulling together bits and pieces of information.

"If we really want to simplify the system, and also give ourselves the power that that information can give us, we need a comprehensive nationwide approach to gathering it and making it available," said Upton.

Upton said every investigation he's worked on has had the issue of missing information to define the problem.

Government leadership is needed to at least join up information gathering from all public entities, said Upton.

Upton said the fragmentation and lack of consistency of information has impeded work in many areas,

In forestry for instance, he said the government wants to regulate what kind of land forestry would be allowed on - however while there's sophisticated mapping done in some parts of the country, other areas lacked this information.

He also used the example of the Manawatū region, which has some of the most versatile soils in the country, but lacked region-wide soil data.

Upton said in some catchment groups, there's a wealth of data they can show to farmers and landowners to help them get on top of water and soil problems, whereas in other parts of the country, this information is not available.