Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) will continue to champion the importance of geospatial information as a key driver for the economy, according the authority’s annual report.

The authority has three roles : managing land transactions and public land, and generating geospatial information.

Currently it is undergoing a shift of focus to concentrate more on the management and generation of geospatial information, and has been appointed to lead New Zealand’s strategy for geospatial information.

“Geospatial information is playing an increasingly important role globally,” says the report. “In 2008, the use of geospatial information added approximately $1.2bn in productivity-related benefits to our economy. But it could provide more if we can make New Zealand’s geospatial data holdings more accessible and able to be shared.”

This is the authority’s main aim: to promote the sharing of such data and reduce barriers that may prevent that sharing.

Over the past year the body says it has developed a roadmap for a national spatial data infrastructure that will allow data to be shared, as well as securing the endorsement of a geospatial metadata standard by the State Services Commission.

It also helped establish a New Zealand branch of the Australian-based Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information to help foster greater trans-Tasman cooperation between government, academic and private sector organisations involved in the geospatial sector.

“By doing so, we aim to stimulate growth in the application of leading-edge geospatial technologies and information in New Zealand,” says the report.

Last week Land Information New Zealand and the National Institute of Water & Atmosphere (NIWA) launched a new web portal providing free public access to data gathered by the Bay of Islands Ocean Survey 20/20 project.

The portal can be found at www.os2020.org.nz.