About Us

About the Soils Portal

The Manaaki Whenua Soils Portal is the home to descriptive and analytical information as it relates to Manaaki Whenua’s scientific research into soil attributes, their behaviours and spatial distribution within New Zealand landscapes. This site provides the entry point to on-line map and data services and the descriptive information that characterises that distribution. The services complement each other, describing:

  • How soils are distributed in the landscape (S-Map, Land Resource Inventory, Fundamental Soils Layer)
  • Where we’ve measured or observed these soils with site investigations (the National Soil Data Repository)
  • How these Soils are changing through time and management (SINDI).


These services provide an insight into the what, where, how, and why of soils in the New Zealand landscape.

The site also provides access to soil data and related resources of the Antarctic and Pacific regions.

The team 2019 v2

Who we are

The Soils and Landscapes Team is involved in research that develops our understanding of soils in New Zealand — particularly the relationship between soils in the landscapes and the effects of climatic and human-induced pressures. Our research aims to evaluate risks and inform sustainable solutions to land use and natural resource allocation options.

The Informatics Team at Manaaki Whenua is a a team of data researchers, software developers, and system engineers with experience in managing specialist science data resources to support natural resource policy and management. We have particular specialist knowledge of geospatial datasets, data and satellite image analysis, taxonomic data, laboratory data and web-services.

We are grateful to Anne Wecking from The University of Waikato for providing inspiring and insightful texts for our Understanding Soils section.

How to cite the Soils Portal

If you need to cite the New Zealand Soils Portal website in an article or report, please use the following citation.

Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research 2020. The New Zealand Soils Portal. https://doi.org/10.26060/3nyh-mh28

Do you like what we do?

Or do you have any suggestions on how we could make the Soils Portal better?
Then talk to our team, we're always happy to have a chat!

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