3 posts tagged with "Imagery"

The June 2026 Ngā Poutama Matawhenua wānanga, Kōrero ā-Mahere: 3D StoryMaps for Kaupapa Māori GIS Mapping, focused on bringing maps, photos, data and kōrero together in an accessible digital story.

Open the current LINZ recording/resource link

The session was held on Friday 19 June 2026 and covered practical StoryMaps techniques rather than requiring advanced GIS experience. The more important point, though, is that the technology should follow the kōrero rather than determine it. A 3D scene, fly-through or swipe map is useful when it helps people understand relationships between places, whenua, awa, maunga, change through time or the sequence of a story. It is not automatically better because it is more visually impressive.

Māori GIS is not simply Western GIS blended with a layer of tikanga or Māori terminology. It begins with kaupapa, people and relationships to whenua, wai, moana and place. GIS is one tool that iwi, hapū, whānau and Māori organisations can choose and adapt for planning, kaitiakitanga, environmental mahi, historical research, Treaty work, ingoa wāhi, communication and many other purposes.

That means a useful Māori GIS resource list is not just a catalogue of software and datasets. The better question is whether the tools increase practical choice, support rangatiratanga over information and reduce unnecessary dependence on an outside specialist or platform. A free dataset is useful if people can understand it. A powerful application is useful if it serves the kaupapa. A cloud service is useful if the people responsible for the information are comfortable with where that information goes and can move it elsewhere later.

The resources below include public data and software. They are useful tools, not the source of Māori authority over the places being mapped.

Basemaps are the background layers that help you read your data in context. In Māori GIS work they often sit behind decisions about whenua, taiao, access, planning and change over time. They can also carry risk because high-detail imagery can reveal more than you intended to share.

A basemap is not simply a technical background. It quietly tells the reader what the map considers normal and important. A road map puts roads first. A cadastral background makes parcel boundaries feel fundamental. A satellite image privileges what can be seen from above. None of these is necessarily wrong, but the choice affects how the whenua is read. A kaupapa concerned with awa, maunga, historic occupation or taiao may need a very different background from a property or infrastructure map.

This post covers the main basemap options used in Aotearoa, how WMTS tiles work, how imagery is updated and how to add these basemaps into QGIS, ArcGIS Online and other tools.