New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics abstracts

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Modelling loess landscapes for the South Island, New Zealand, based on expert knowledge

Jochen Schmidt¹*
Peter C. Almond²
Les Basher¹
Sam Carrick¹
Allan E. Hewitt¹
Ian H. Lynn¹
Trevor H. Webb¹

¹Landcare Research NZ Ltd
P.O. Box 69
Lincoln, New Zealand

²Soil and Physical Sciences Group
Division of Soil, Plant and Ecological Sciences
Lincoln University
P.O. Box 84
Lincoln, New Zealand

*Present address: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), P.O. Box 8602, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Abstract  In New Zealand, occurrence of loess often determines the spatial pattern of soil depth, and influences droughtiness, leaching potential, organic matter accumulation, nutrient retention, and natural plant-species distribution. Understanding loess distribution is therefore a major prerequisite for soil and land resource management. Although New Zealand’s soil scientists have accumulated a good empirical knowledge of loess distribution through several decades of field investigation, only some of this knowledge is recorded in papers and reports. This study estimates loess thickness and percent cover, and provides loess landscape models for the internal loess distribution of all land units in the South Island based on expert knowledge. We derived loess depth classes and percent cover classes and assembled land units with similar loess distribution patterns. The soil sets underpinning the map units of the New Zealand Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI) were classified according to loess depth, loess cover, and loess pattern. New loess maps of the South Island were produced from those classifications, displaying loess coverage, thickness, loess pattern, and loess landscapes. These maps present our current knowledge of the coarse-scale loess distribution and provide a framework for fine-scale loess landscape modelling.

Keywords  loess; soil-landscapes; expert models; Geo-Information Systems (GIS); South Island; New Zealand

G04009; O Received 24 February 2004; accepted 7 July 2004; nline publication date 23 March 2005
New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics, 2005, Vol. 48: 117–133
0028–8306/05/4801–0117 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005

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