Skip to content

Gisborne / Top of South Councils data via eolas

This cluster covers four geographically-dispersed unitary + city councils that don't sit neatly within a single regional-council area: Gisborne (East Coast), Marlborough, Nelson City, and Tasman District (top of the South Island). eolas serves 45 datasets across the cluster.

Each of these is a unitary authority (regional + territorial functions combined) — so the data spans planning, hazards, and environmental management in one source.

If you're doing East-Coast cyclone-resilience research, Marlborough wine-country property analysis, or Nelson / Tasman coastal-region planning — this is the source.

What's in the catalogue

Council Code Datasets Highlights
Nelson City nelson 17 DP zones, hazards, heritage — densest urban coverage in the cluster
Gisborne District (GDC) gdc 11 Post-Gabrielle hazard suite, coastal management, wāhi tapu
Marlborough District (MDC) mdc 11 Aquaculture management, coastal natural character, flood, designations
Tasman District tasman 6 DP basics + coastal

Standout datasets

  • mdc_marl_aquaculture_mgmt_areas — Marlborough Sounds aquaculture (mussel + salmon) management zones
  • gdc_coastal_* — Gisborne's coastal hazard suite (post-Cyclone Gabrielle relevance)
  • gdc_waahi_tapu — iwi-consented sacred site polygons
  • nelson_*_hazard — Nelson's earthquake / liquefaction / flood layers
  • mdc_marl_coastal_natural_character_outstanding — outstanding coastal character (Sounds-specific)

Browse: eolas.fyi/datasets?source=Gisborne+%2F+Top+of+South+Councils.

Refresh schedule

Weekly, Wednesday morning NZ time. Each council publishes via its own ArcGIS / Koordinates portal.

License

All cluster data is CC-BY 4.0. Per-council attribution required.

Common patterns

Marlborough Sounds aquaculture lookup

aqua = client.top_of_south("mdc_marl_aquaculture_mgmt_areas", as_sf=True)
print(aqua["mgmt_class"].value_counts())  # mussel / salmon / mixed

Gisborne post-Gabrielle coastal exposure

import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point

pt = gpd.GeoSeries([Point(178.0099, -38.6623)], crs="EPSG:4326")  # central Gisborne
erosion = client.top_of_south("gdc_coastal_erosion", as_sf=True)
hit = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), erosion, predicate="within")
print(f"Gisborne coastal erosion zone: {'YES' if len(hit) else 'no'}")

Source-specific notes

  • Four distinct economies: this cluster groups councils by data-portal pattern (each is a unitary publishing its full suite), not by economic similarity. Gisborne's primary sector economy is very different from Nelson's seafood + tourism, Marlborough's wine + aquaculture, and Tasman's horticulture.
  • Marlborough aquaculture: NZ's salmon + mussel industries are concentrated here. The aquaculture-management-area layers are statutory + binding on new farms.
  • Gisborne post-Gabrielle: Cyclone Gabrielle (Feb 2023) caused major damage in Gisborne / Wairoa. Some post-event remapping is published; updates are ongoing.
  • Nelson + Tasman cross-boundary: Nelson City + Tasman District share boundaries + some infrastructure. Always check both councils when doing the Nelson-Tasman urban area.
  • Wāhi tapu publishing: GDC's wāhi tapu layer follows iwi-consented publication conventions; some sites are deliberately broad polygons to protect specific locations.

Where to find more