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Otago Councils data via eolas

The Otago region covers ~250,000 people across Otago Regional Council (ORC) and five territorial authorities — Central Otago, Clutha, Dunedin, Queenstown-Lakes, and Waitaki. eolas serves 41 datasets — with heavy weighting toward Queenstown-Lakes (tourism + hazards) and ORC (water + land use).

If you're doing Otago property research, alpine-tourism planning, or water-allocation analysis — this is the source.

What's in the catalogue

Council Code Datasets Highlights
Queenstown-Lakes (QLDC) qldc 22 District Plan + ski-area overlays + landscape protection + Queenstown airport noise
Otago Regional Council (ORC) orc 9 Land use 2024, irrigated areas, groundwater protection, flood (incl. Roxburgh debris)
Dunedin City Council (DCC) dcc 7 2nd Generation District Plan (2GP) zones, designations, heritage, significant trees
Waitaki District (WDC) wdc 2 District plan basics
Clutha District clutha 1 Resource areas

Standout datasets

Dataset Description
orc_otago_land_use_2024 ORC's 2024 land-use map for the region — one of the few council-published current land-use rasters in NZ.
orc_otago_irrigated_areas Modelled irrigated farmland — useful for dairying / pastoral analysis.
orc_roxburgh_debris_flood_max_credible Maximum credible debris-flood scenario for Roxburgh — distinct from standard return-period mapping.
dcc_2gp_zones Dunedin's "2nd Generation District Plan" — the operative plan post-2019.
qldc_* (suite) Comprehensive Queenstown-Lakes coverage — alpine + lakeside + airport overlays.

Browse the full list: eolas.fyi/datasets?source=Otago+Councils.

Refresh schedule

Weekly, Wednesday morning NZ time. ORC publishes via data.orc.govt.nz; QLDC via its own ArcGIS portal; DCC via opendata.dunedin.govt.nz.

meta = client.info("orc_otago_land_use_2024")
meta["last_refreshed_at"]

License

All Otago council data is CC-BY 4.0. Commercial use fine; per-council attribution required.

Common patterns

Queenstown-Lakes property due diligence

import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point

pt = gpd.GeoSeries([Point(168.6626, -45.0312)], crs="EPSG:4326")  # central Queenstown

# Common QLDC layers worth checking
layers = [
    "qldc_district_plan_zones",
    "qldc_outstanding_natural_landscapes",
    "qldc_visual_amenity_landscapes",
    "qldc_natural_hazards",
]
for name in layers:
    try:
        layer = client.otago(name, as_sf=True)
        hit = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), layer, predicate="within")
        print(f"  {name}: {'YES' if len(hit) else 'no'}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"  {name}: skipped ({e})")

Land-use composition (ORC 2024)

import geopandas as gpd

lu = client.otago("orc_otago_land_use_2024", as_sf=True)
lu["area_ha"] = lu.to_crs("EPSG:2193").area / 10_000
by_class = lu.groupby("land_use_class")["area_ha"].sum().sort_values(ascending=False)
print(by_class.head(15))

Source-specific notes

  • QLDC publishes more than the count suggests: the 22 layers in eolas are a subset of QLDC's public portal — additional cycle network + parks + heritage layers are on the roadmap.
  • ORC's land-use map is unusually current: most regional councils don't publish a recent land-use raster. ORC's 2024 layer is genuinely current and high-value for primary-sector analytics.
  • Roxburgh debris-flow data: Otago has specific historical landslide / debris-flow hazards around Roxburgh; the max-credible layer reflects worst-case scenarios used in consenting.
  • Dunedin's 2GP: the second-generation district plan replaced Dunedin's 1st-generation plan in 2019. dcc_2gp_* layers are the current operative; older dcc_* (where they exist) are deprecated.
  • Queenstown airport overlays: critical for residential development in the basin — qldc_airport_* layers (where present) capture noise + obstacle limit surfaces.
  • Central Otago, Clutha, Waitaki: limited current coverage. Their districts have less data on shared portals; on the roadmap to expand.

Where to find more