Acquiring DEM Data

This series of guides will walk you through the process of locating, downloading, and utilizing raster DEM data. This first guide steps you through how to get data from the LINZ Data Service (LDS). The LDS offers free access to over 40 authoritative land and seabed datasets through a user-friendly interface. If you’re unfamiliar with LDS, consider watching this introductory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bO3KgedqEY. The LDS provides pre-generated DEM, which is a quick way to access high-quality data.

To find the DEM data for your area of interest, simply visit the LDS website and enter ‘DEM’ in the search bar. You can narrow down your search results by specifying a region, which helps avoid an overwhelming number of results. The two primary DEM datasets that may be of interest to you are:

• NZ Wide Data: This includes datasets like the NZ wide 8m dataset. While this dataset covers all of NZ, it was generated from contours and is not recommended for detailed work.
• Regional Data Generated from Lidar: These datasets typically have a 1m resolution, such as the Banks Peninsula Dataset. This is likely the type of data you’ll want to use.