A spatial layer of human terrestrial pressures for New Zealand

The global Human Footprint Map is a measure of human pressures on the environment that has been linked to changes in species extinction risks and the loss of intact ecosystems. Previous work assessed the utility of downscaling the global map to more precise regional scales using a 90 m resolution, and found that doing so supported conservation-based land-use planning. We created a New Zealand human pressure layer in a resolution (100 m) and projection (New Zealand Transverse Mercator 2000) suitable for national-scale analysis for the years 2012 and 2018. We used locally appropriate data sources for the global pressures (built environment, cropland, navigable waterways, pasture, population density, rail, road, visible nightlights). We found our pressure layer, and the underlying individual layers, to be useful for understanding (a) pressures on protected land ranked according to an international schema, and (b) how pressures around wetlands in 2012, particularly pressures relating to pasture and roads, differentiate wetlands that were lost between 2012 and 2018 from those that remained extant during this period.