Understanding LUC and NZLRI

The land use capability system was devised as a tool for regional, catchment and farm soil conservation planning.

The concept originated in the United States as a way of interpreting information for soil conservation, by grouping multi-factor information (e.g., land, rock, soil, slope, vegetation, erosion) into homogenous map units with similar physical characteristics and limitations to provide an assessment of the long term agricultural production. Each land unit was assessed on a single numerical scale.

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Here are some reasons why a LUC system is important:

• To ensure national standards and consistency throughout New Zealand for planning sustainable land use and management.
• To develop national standards for assessing/classifying erosion and implementing erosion control, to achieve consistent soil conservation standards and practices related to erosion.
• To determine if land is suitable for certain uses or where there are any risks of degradation.
• To sustain one or more productive uses based on physical limitations and site-specific management needs.
• To help achieve sustainable land development and management on farms.

The New Zealand Land Resource Inventory System (NZLRI) is compiled as an assessment of physical factors considered to be critical for long-term land use and management. Those factors are:

• soil
• rock
• slope
• erosion
• vegetation cover.

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The Land Use Capacity Classification system has three components in a hierarchical structure: LUC Class, LUC Subclass, and LUC Unit.
Each component is represented by a number or symbol and the information relevant to each LUC unit is presented in an extended legend that accompanies the map / data.

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Scale is an important consideration when mapping New Zealand Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI), when classifying LUC, and when making use of existing NZLRI and LUC information.

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Soil is part of the physical nature of the landscape. It is one of the four limitations within LUC Subclass and it could be limiting sustainable production of the land.

New Zealand soil information is classified in terms of the old NZ Genetic Classification (Taylor & Pohlen 1962, 1968) or the NZ Soil Classification (Hewitt 1998). 

Soil maps may also use the ‘regional soil series’ approach to grouping soils, where the Series describes a local soil (e.g., Manawatu soils), the Soil Type differentiates the soil by textural class (e.g. Manawatu fine sandy loam), and the Phase indicates a distinctive characteristic like landscape position, wetness, depth, or stoniness (e.g., Manawatu fine sandy loam, mottled phase).

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