Managing catchment areas is no small job. Whether you’re part of an environmental group, local council, industry body, or a private conservation organisation, effective catchment management takes clear planning, reliable data, and tools that work across complex landscapes. Catchment groups around New Zealand are tasked with protecting water quality, improving biodiversity, and reducing erosion, often with limited resources. CarbonCrop’s platform is here to help get that job done, making it easier to plan and coordinate activities across your catchment—at scale.
CarbonCrop was initially built to support forest owners registering their land for carbon credits in New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). But with real-world feedback from farmers and catchment managers, it’s grown into a complete toolkit that supports catchment-wide planning and project management. Our platform now provides catchment groups with the tools they need to organise, collaborate, and make decisions that have real impact on the land.
Note: In this blog, “catchment group” includes local government bodies, environmental groups, NGOs, professional groups, and any other organisations working in catchment and ecosystem management.
Remote assessment of forest areas
The CarbonCrop platform gives users a clear view of what’s happening across their land without needing to be on-site. With streamlined data and planning tools, groups can take a big-picture view of the entire catchment, while still getting site-specific insights. From mapping forested areas to highlighting erosion-prone land, the platform simplifies data management, making it easier to build up a clear picture of ecosystem health, water quality, and biodiversity.
Originally created to support and streamline carbon credit registration under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for landowners, we’ve now opened up our platform to a range of users, from landholders and catchment groups to primary sector processors and project developers. With multi-stakeholder access, each group can contribute and access data relevant to their needs, supporting a connected approach to forest protection and restoration activities.
Steps for Effective Catchment Management Using CarbonCrop
CarbonCrop platform supports users through each stage of management, helping users map, collaborate, and access relevant data to inform effective planning and project execution.
Step 1: Understand the Catchment
CarbonCrop’s mapping tools allow users to start with a big-picture view, visualising the entire catchment to see existing land use, forest cover, and high-priority sites for ecosystem restoration or future planting. This lets catchment groups assess key areas of interest, like sites with native forests to protect or land at high risk of erosion. With these insights, catchment groups can set priorities that align with their overall goals.
Step 2: Engage Landowners in a Collaborative Approach
Once high-priority areas are identified, catchment groups can then collaborate with individual landowners. Engaging with landowners is essential for making catchment management work, and CarbonCrop’s platform is designed to facilitate a collaborative approach. By providing clear data and visuals that catchment groups can use to share practical information with landholders and support open discussions around areas where they can make the most impact identifying areas with potential where activities may have the biggest impact, like erosion-prone areas or sites particularly suited for future plantings. Landowners can become active partners in planning, rather than just recipients of top-down directives, and can actively contribute to catchment-wide goals while having information to make the informed decisions for their land.
Step 3: Conduct Detailed Land Analysis for Precise Interventions
With landowners on board, and priority areas identified, CarbonCrop’s planning tools come into play. The platform’s tooling can help with future planting planning, support with evidence collection of activities at scale, stay on top ETS registrations, and manage compliance tasks like emissions returns, to name a few. These tools support catchments to plan and execute projects that are both impactful and sustainable, helping to provide the information and accountability, setting a clear path for practical, long-term results.
Practical Tools for Sustainable Land Use and Forest Management
CarbonCrop provides catchment groups with practical tools that help ensure sustainability, both environmentally and financially.
Automated Mapping and Land Cover Analysis
With automated mapping tools, users can quickly assess land across an entire catchment, breaking it down into parcels for farm-by-farm management. This option between the high-level and zoomed-in views, allows catchment groups to stay organised, giving catchment groups a straightforward way to organise their projects, compare properties, and track progress.
Modelling Financials and Environmental Impact
Catchments often require financial support to execute their activities. From estimating total planting costs, to projected carbon revenue, CarbonCrop lets you see the financial side of each project. Understanding these numbers up front means catchment groups can make data-backed decisions and secure funding with confidence.
Monitoring and Long-Term Planning
Effective catchment management requires a long-term view. CarbonCrop’s integrated planning and evidence collection tools allow catchment groups to track ongoing activities, such as pest control and restoration efforts, and monitor outcomes over time. This tracking helps catchment groups support biodiversity and sustainable land use in the long run, and share progress with key stakeholders.
Funding Sources and Revenue Generation
With built-in financial tools, CarbonCrop helps catchment groups plan for financial viability by providing revenue forecasts, simplifying ETS registration, and supporting the evaluation of additional funding needs.
While the ETS offers a valuable income stream through carbon credits, CarbonCrop’s platform allows groups to model carbon revenue and project funding requirements, helping them to identify whether additional resources - such as riparian grants or erosion-control funding - may be needed. By incorporating these financial forecasts into their planning process, catchment groups can make data-backed, strategic decisions for more stable funding.
Key Benefits of Using CarbonCrop for Catchment Management
By centralising data and enabling collaboration, the CarbonCrop platform can simplify and support the planning, execution, and management of catchment projects.
Engagement and Collaboration: Multi-level collaboration, allows stakeholders to view and work on shared sites or project tasks with ease. Seeing the same information, and sharing visibility over projects, supports coordinated decision-making which is backed by data.
Flexibility and Succession Planning: CarbonCrop’s centralised data repository ensures continuity, even as team members change. This supports smooth transitions and maintains a consistent approach over the years, crucial for long-term management of projects.
Impact Tracking: CarbonCrop’s monitoring tools supports catchment groups to track progress over time, and can help provide the data to back up their activities. This means environmental impact can be measured and communicated to stakeholders and funders.
Ready to Get Started?
Catchment management is complex, CarbonCrop’s platform provides the support that groups need to understand, protect, and engage their regions for a sustainable future. With features built for collaboration, data analysis, and long-term planning, CarbonCrop empowers catchment groups to make smart, impactful decisions for the health of our land and water.
If your organisation is ready to explore CarbonCrop’s catchment solutions, reach out to our team today.
Register your forest before the end of 2025 for 3 years of carbon credits
With the next ETS emissions reporting period ending next year, now is the time to consider if the ETS is right for you.
For existing forest owners, registration before the end of the emissions reporting period means the opportunity to claim backdated carbon credits. So, if you’ve been considering registering your forest into the ETS, we encourage you to look into whether it’s right for you - if it is - then consider entering your forest before mid-next year to have the best chance of getting it accepted before the end of the reporting period.
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