Contaminated land

Monitoring and research

• Land and soil resource monitoring
• Contamination research projects
• Background levels
• Rural homepage

Land and soil resource monitoring

From time to time, the health and ‘intactness' of Auckland's rural soils is measured to see how they may be changing in response to land-use pressure.

Three Levels of information are monitored:

• Level 1: Land and soil erosion monitoring - assists us to make decisions about where to direct research, investigation and education resources and helps us with policy development, implementation and reviews.
• Level 2: Soil health monitoring - from 1998 to 2000, the ARC was involved in a nation-wide soil-health monitoring project dubbed the ‘500 soils project'. Landcare Research conducted the monitoring work on behalf of many regional councils, with funding assistance from the Ministry for the Environments' Sustainable Management Fund. The 3-year project resulted in 75 soil sites being monitored throughout the Auckland region. Predominant land-use activities were selected on main soil types and tested for 13 key biological, physical and chemical properties.
• Level 3: Rural soil erosion monitoring - in 2000, the ARC gathered information about the current extent of erosion and vegetation cover in parts of the region particularly at-risk from erosion, including the hill-country of Rodney district and western sand country of the Awhitu and Kaipara districts. Aerial photographs of the region were used to determine vegetation extent and type using a grid-based point sampling system.

Contamination research projects

• TP153: Background Soils & Inorganic Concentrations - a study of the soils in the Auckland Region to determine background levels of inorganic elements
• WR 96: Pesticide Residues in Soils - a study of historical pesticide use in the Auckland region, was conducted in 2002.
  Pesticides in horticultural soils in the Auckland region (1.1 MB PDF)
• TP95: Long Term Baseline Groundwater Chemistry - a technical publication used to determine whether the groundwater, including the major water supply aquifers in the Auckland region, have been impacted by industrial/horticultural use or urbanisation use.