Land use and land use change are catchment-wide indicators assessing how we are using our land. Over half of the area of the catchment is categorised as “production grassland”, dominated by low producing grassland. Following grassland, the most common land uses in the catchment are forest land (16.6%), and grassland with woody biomass (11.0%). Built-up areas account for only 0.3% of the total area of the catchment.

Urban areas in Wānaka and Hāwea have increased since 1990. Primarily through the conversion of productive grassland. Despite this conversion, the total area of production grassland remained the same, as grassland with woody biomass has been converted to production grassland.

Since 1990, there has been a net increase of 392 ha of forestland across the catchment. Most of this increase has been through the growth of new exotic forest. The cover of natural, indigenous forest has seen a net decline.

To understand the current land use and land use change practices, a more recent dataset from 2008 to 2018 was analysed, showing a gross increase in exotic forest cover of 71 ha.This increase results from the conversion of production grassland (52 ha), which account for 0.02% of the total production grassland available in the catchment. A gross decrease in indigenous forest cover of 69 ha is observed between 2008 and 2018.

Most of the loss of indigenous forest that took place between 2008 and 2018 was the result of landslides in the high alpine¹, rather than a direct impact of anthropogenic activities. Although indigenous forest is not under particular threat, there has been a notable decline in other native vegetation classes. Specifically, fernlands have experienced a reduction of 1,500 hectares in land cover.