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ECan / Canterbury Councils data via eolas

The Canterbury region covers ~670,000 people across Environment Canterbury (ECan, the regional council) and seven territorial authorities — Ashburton, Christchurch, Hurunui, Selwyn, Timaru, Waimakariri, and Waimate. eolas serves 85 datasets spanning the region, with particularly comprehensive earthquake + flood hazard data reflecting Canterbury's recent seismic history.

If you're doing Canterbury planning, hazard, water-allocation, or post-quake property analysis — this is the source.

What's in the catalogue

Environment Canterbury (ECan) — 25 datasets

ECan is one of NZ's largest regional councils and publishes extensively. The data splits across:

Theme Key datasets
Earthquake ecan_earthquake_faults_2024, ecan_kaikoura_2016_fault_traces, ecan_liquefaction_polygon, ecan_liquefaction_susceptibility_final
Land + Water Plan (LWRP) ecan_lwrp_groundwater_allocation_zones, ecan_lwrp_groundwater_management_zones, ecan_lwrp_surface_water_allocation_zones, ecan_lwrp_surface_water_catchments, ecan_lwrp_nutrient_allocation_zones
Resource consents ecan_active_resource_consent_points, ecan_resource_consents_active_all, ecan_resource_consents_view
Regional Coastal Environment Plan (RCEP) ecan_rcep_coastal_hazard_zones, ecan_rcep_significant_natural_value
Coastal + rivers ecan_coastal_public_access_sites, ecan_coastal_natural_character_level, ecan_coastal_natural_character_outstanding, ecan_river_public_access_sites, ecan_tsunami_evacuation_zones
Imagery + LiDAR ecan_aerial_imagery_extents, ecan_lidar_collection_extents (catalogues, not the raw imagery)
Other ecan_district_plan_zones_consolidated (multi-TA cross-walk), ecan_clean_air_zones, ecan_historic_sites_combined, ecan_school_enrolment_zones

Waimakariri District (WMKDC) — 29 datasets

Waimakariri publishes its full proposed District Plan 2025 layer suite:

Pattern Datasets
wmkdc_dp2025_* New district plan overlays — designations, development areas, coastal environment, heritage, natural features, notable trees, precincts (~12 layers)
wmkdc_haz_* Hazard layers — flood scenarios (200yr / 500yr), Ashley + Waimakariri rivers, ground shaking
wmkdc_buildings, wmkdc_property_boundaries Council-published cadastral subset

Christchurch City Council (CCC) — 11 datasets

Dataset Description
ccc_district_plan_zones Operative district-plan zones (post-quake recovery rebuild).
ccc_district_plan_designations Council + Crown designations.
ccc_district_plan_central_recovery Christchurch Central Recovery Plan overlay (post-2011 quake).
ccc_district_plan_residential_character Residential character + scheduled areas.
ccc_district_plan_scheduled_activity Specific activity-scheduled sites.
ccc_district_plan_liquefaction_mgmt Liquefaction management overlay — different from ECan's regional layer.
ccc_coastal_erosion_hazard, ccc_coastal_inundation_hazard Coastal hazards.
ccc_cycleway_network Christchurch's cycle network.

Ashburton District (ashb) — 16 datasets

Comprehensive coverage: zones, designations, flood / fault / geoconservation hazards, heritage, irrigation designations, railway, stopbanks, water bodies.

Hurunui District — 4 datasets

Basic coverage: designations, district plan zones, heritage, flood hazards.

Refresh schedule

Weekly, Wednesday morning NZ time. Most Canterbury councils publish via opendata.canterburymaps.govt.nz — a shared Koordinates portal — plus their own ArcGIS portals. ECan also publishes its own layers via ecan.govt.nz/data.

The Waimakariri District Plan 2025 layers update as the plan moves through hearings + decisions; the suffix _decision (where present) tracks the post-decisions version.

meta = client.info("ecan_earthquake_faults_2024")
meta["last_refreshed_at"]
meta["source_last_modified_at"]

License

All Canterbury council data is published under CC-BY 4.0. Commercial use is fine; attribution required.

Recommended attribution: "Source: [Council name], served via eolas (eolas.fyi). CC-BY 4.0." — substitute ECan / CCC / WMKDC etc. as applicable.

Common patterns

Post-quake property due diligence (Christchurch)

The Canterbury-specific workflow that became routine after 2010-2011:

import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point

pt = gpd.GeoSeries([Point(172.6362, -43.5321)], crs="EPSG:4326")  # central Christchurch

layers = {
    "Liquefaction (CCC)": "ccc_district_plan_liquefaction_mgmt",
    "Liquefaction (ECan regional)": "ecan_liquefaction_polygon",
    "Fault avoidance": "ecan_earthquake_faults_2024",
    "Coastal erosion": "ccc_coastal_erosion_hazard",
    "Coastal inundation": "ccc_coastal_inundation_hazard",
}
for label, name in layers.items():
    layer = client.canterbury(name, as_sf=True)
    hit = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), layer, predicate="within")
    print(f"  {label}: {'YES' if len(hit) else 'no'}")

library(sf)
pt <- st_sfc(st_point(c(172.6362, -43.5321)), crs = 4326)

layers <- c(
  "Liquefaction (CCC)"    = "ccc_district_plan_liquefaction_mgmt",
  "Liquefaction (ECan)"   = "ecan_liquefaction_polygon",
  "Fault avoidance"       = "ecan_earthquake_faults_2024"
)

for (label in names(layers)) {
  layer <- eolas_get_canterbury(layers[label], as_sf = TRUE)
  cat(label, ":", any(st_within(pt, layer, sparse = FALSE)), "\n")
}

Water allocation: surface vs groundwater

ECan administers Canterbury's contested water resource — useful for irrigation, dairy, and resource-consent analysis:

import geopandas as gpd

gw = client.canterbury("ecan_lwrp_groundwater_allocation_zones", as_sf=True)
sw = client.canterbury("ecan_lwrp_surface_water_allocation_zones", as_sf=True)

# Active surface-water takes per zone
consents = client.canterbury("ecan_active_resource_consent_points", as_sf=True)
water_takes = consents[consents["consent_type"].str.contains("water take", case=False, na=False)]
takes_by_zone = gpd.sjoin(water_takes, sw, predicate="within").groupby("zone_name").size()
print(takes_by_zone.sort_values(ascending=False).head(15))

Earthquake fault buffers

import geopandas as gpd

faults = client.canterbury("ecan_earthquake_faults_2024", as_sf=True).to_crs("EPSG:2193")
faults["buffer_20m"] = faults.geometry.buffer(20)
# Properties within 20m of a fault — typically subject to building-setback rules

Source-specific notes

  • Two liquefaction layers exist: ccc_district_plan_liquefaction_mgmt is Christchurch City's planning layer (drives consenting rules); ecan_liquefaction_polygon is ECan's regional hazard layer (broader scientific assessment). They mostly overlap but aren't identical — for consenting, use the CCC layer; for risk assessment, use ECan's.
  • Post-quake Canterbury data is dense for a reason: the 2010-2011 sequence + 2016 Kaikōura quake generated enormous post-event data. ecan_kaikoura_2016_fault_traces captures observed surface ruptures; ecan_earthquake_faults_2024 is the current legally-recognised hazard envelope.
  • Christchurch Central Recovery Plan: a unique post-quake regulatory overlay specific to central Christchurch. Different consenting rules apply within it.
  • WMKDC's two plan generations: the operative district plan is the current legal document; the DP2025 layers (wmkdc_dp2025_*) are the proposed plan in hearings. Both serve different purposes — use the operative for active consenting, DP2025 for forecasting.
  • Hurunui + Selwyn coverage: limited but growing. As both councils publish more open data, eolas will add layers — see eolas.fyi/datasets?source=ECan+%2F+Canterbury for the current list.
  • Selwyn, Timaru, Waimate: minimal layers via the cluster's shared Koordinates portal. Their own portals have more — on the eolas roadmap to fold in.
  • Aerial imagery + LiDAR: ecan_aerial_imagery_extents + ecan_lidar_collection_extents are catalogues (where coverage exists, when flown) — not the raw imagery / point clouds themselves. Raw data is available via ECan's portal on request.

Where to find more

  • Councils overview — the full council coverage model
  • LINZ — for cadastral parcels you'll join hazards to (Canterbury post-quake LINZ data is well-maintained)
  • Examples — boundary mapping recipes