Broad Scale Mapping of the Waipati (Chaslands) Estuary was undertaken by Salt Ecology on behalf of Otago Regional Council and is described in: Forrest BM, Roberts KL, Stevens LM, Scott-Simmonds T. 2023. Synoptic Broad Scale Ecological Assessment of Waipati (Chaslands) River Estuary. Salt Ecology Report 113, prepared for Otago Regional Council, May 2023. 52p.

Ground-truthing was conducted during 1 December 2022.

Features were mapped onto 30cm/pixel colour aerial imagery captured between January and April 2019 and sourced from LINZ Data Service.

Generally, at a digitising scale of 1:2000, spatial accuracy for features clearly visible on aerial photos (e.g. salt marsh, cobble fields, dense macroalgae) is ~2 metres. Spatial accuracy for features difficult to distinguish on aerial photos (e.g., where boundaries represent a habitat transition from mud to sand) is ~10 to 50 metres depending on the extent of ground truthing undertaken.

Features were digitised and field codes recorded by Salt Ecology in a master layer.

Salt Ecology proprietary scripting tools were used to validate field codes, check for topology errors, produce symbolised output layers and create summary data tables.

The estuary polygon layer depicts the full extent of the estuary and includes both the intertidal and subtidal areas.

Use with permission of Otago Regional Council and Salt Ecology.