Environmental indicators for land: Overall soil quality in the Waikato region 1998 - 2004
Report: TR05/47
Author: Graham Sparling (Landcare Research)
Abstract
Protocols for monitoring land and soils were established by a 6-year trial commonly known as the 500 Soils Project, and an interpretive framework for reporting at a regional scale was developed. Environment Waikato supported and participated in the trial and has applied the approach to report on soil quality within the Waikato region.
Environment Waikato monitors soil quality in the Waikato each year, and the annual data are published as a series of annual reports. Summaries of soil quality in the region are produced, classified by land uses and soil orders. Landcare Research was contracted to provide an overview of soil quality in the region using all the currently available data collected from 1995 to 2004, and to summarise the data in suitable format for updating of the website information.