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Map taiao, hazards and environmental change

Taiao mapping is strongest when local observation, mātauranga, monitoring, historical evidence and technical datasets can be considered together without pretending they are interchangeable.

A practical route​

  1. Start with the environmental question or decision, not the available layers.
  2. Identify the places, species, practices and relationships that matter to the kaupapa.
  3. Decide what locally held information can appropriately enter the GIS and at what level of detail.
  4. Add current public sources such as catchments, elevation, land cover, hazards, climate or monitoring data where they help.
  5. Check scale, date, model limitations and whether a layer is observed, predicted or administrative.
  6. Map change over time where that tells more than a current snapshot.
  7. Keep field observations linked to who collected them, when, how and under what conditions.
  8. Prepare different outputs for field work, technical analysis and hui if one map cannot serve all three well.

Use models carefully​

A flood extent, erosion model, climate projection or land-cover class can be extremely useful. It remains a model or classification produced for a particular purpose.

Use it as evidence. Do not let its technical appearance displace observations, histories or relationships that the dataset was never designed to contain.

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