Land Cover Database v6.0
LCDB v6.0, released in October 2025, is the current national Land Cover Database. It maps land cover at six nominal summer time steps: 1996/97, 2001/02, 2008/09, 2012/13, 2018/19 and 2023/24.
It contains 33 mainland classes, with Chatham Islands additions in the national product. The classification is designed for national/regional monitoring and roughly complements 1:50,000 topographic mapping.
Source
Use the authoritative LRIS/Our Environment material from Manaaki Whenua, now within the Bioeconomy Science Institute structure.
Land cover is not land use
A polygon classified High Producing Exotic Grassland or Exotic Forest describes mapped cover, not ownership, zoning, farm business or every land-use activity occurring there.
Time-series analysis
LCDB is designed to preserve change tracking across releases. Use class fields/time steps rather than comparing unrelated third-party screenshots. For local change, corroborate with aerial imagery.
Wetland and coastal change
Version 6 includes attributes intended to support wetland monitoring and significant coastal changes. Read the version-6 user/class documentation before building automated reclassification rules.
Last reviewed: 26 August 2026