Making a splash with one of our largest environmental data platforms in Aotearoa

Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) is a collaboration between New Zealand’s 16 regional and unitary councils, the Cawthron Institute, the Ministry for the Environment, and NIWA. As one of the country’s largest environmental data platforms, LAWA plays a critical role in providing open, trustworthy, and accessible environmental information to the public.

Over eight years, I contributed to the platform’s evolution, leading the development of five key topics. My role focused on reshaping complex scientific data into intuitive, user-friendly tools, ensuring that environmental insights were engaging and actionable for a broad audience. Through strategic UI design, data visualisation, and social campaigns, I helped position LAWA as New Zealand’s go-to site for environmental awareness and decision-making.

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Map displaying recreational water quality results with colour-coded indicators for swimming suitability across northern New Zealand. Includes a dashboard with a graph and explanations about water quality status and monitoring.

Understanding the audience

LAWA’s primary audience includes the general public, environmental researchers, policymakers, and local councils. The platform needs to communicate environmental data in a scientifically accurate yet accessible way. Ensuring that information is intuitive and engaging is essential to helping people make informed decisions about water quality, land use, and conservation efforts.

Three mobile app screens from the LAWA (Land Air Water Aotearoa) website show activities, water quality stats, and long-term grade information. The left screen lists activities like swimming, surfing, and more with facilities details. The center screen shows a donut chart for enterococci sampling, indicating water suitability for swimming. The right screen provides explanations for long-term water quality grades and safety based on enterococci levels.

Strategic approach

I led key aspects of the project, including:

  • Developing and leading the creation of five topics:

    1. Can I swim here?
      Providing real-time water quality data to help the public choose safe swimming locations.

    2. Groundwater Quality
      Monitoring groundwater trends to assess suitability for drinking, irrigation, and industry.

    3. Land Cover
      Tracking land cover changes from 1996 to 2018 to support water quality management and ecosystem stability.

    4. Estuary Health
      Analysing estuary conditions to highlight environmental pressures and conservation needs.

    5. Actions for Healthy Waterways
      Compiling restoration efforts across freshwater catchments to measure progress and encourage collaboration.

  • Creating and overseeing social campaign assets to strengthen brand visibility, ensuring the platform remains visually engaging and top-of-mind for users seeking environmental insights.

Promotional posters for "Swim the Great Outdoors" campaign, showing children playing in water, with information about New Zealand's water quality and a website link (lawa.org.nz/swim).
Child swinging on a rope over water with text 'Swim the Great Outdoors' and 'LAWA Land Air Water Aotearoa' logo.
Three Facebook posts by LAWA about environmental initiatives, including Sea Week, Nelson Anniversary event at Cable Bay, and water quality warnings. Each post includes images and text promoting coastal activities and environmental awareness.
Screenshot of a webpage about Akaroa Harbour from LAWA (Land Air Water Aotearoa), showing a map of the Canterbury region in New Zealand, information about the harbour's geography and environmental impacts, and sections on estuary summary, upstream conditions, and surrounding land cover.
Web pages showing New Zealand estuary health information, maps, and graphics on water quality, with navigation options and educational content about estuaries.
Group collaborating in a workshop with sketches and notes on a whiteboard.

Responsibilities

I was responsible for:

  • Planning and managing project and client activities, including scoping, costing, and establishing timelines, while ensuring clear communication, efficient workflows, and successful delivery within budget.

  • Facilitating workshops with scientists and environmental experts to define environmental indicators and establish standardised data collection methods. Each topic involved 6–8 workshops, structured in two phases:

    1. Discovery Workshops
      Co-designing each indicator using key activities like post-up sessions, Unique Selling Point (USP) sessions, and dot voting to build consensus.

    2. Critique Workshops
      Creating wireframe journey maps to help scientists visualise user workflows. Once validated, progressing to high-fidelity prototypes with further discussion and iteration.

  • Designing and evolving UI design systems to ensure consistency in appearance, interactivity, usability, user input behaviours, and the overall experience across all topics.

  • Maintaining quality assurance throughout the development process by collaborating with an external agency, reviewing designs, testing features, reporting bugs, and proposing improvements.

  • Directing and designing illustrations to reinforce LAWA’s visual identity, simplify complex information, and enhance overall user engagement.

  • Developing user-centric data visualisation to make environmental insights accessible to scientific and general audiences.

Three mobile app screens displaying estuary health indicators, characteristics, and stressor data for New Zealand. Features include macrofauna scores, mud content, metal concentrations like zinc, copper, and lead, along with significant estuary features and area stats.
Two LAWA web pages show New Zealand environmental data, including maps, estuary monitoring, and mud content graphs.
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Map and data visualization of Wellington Region land cover, showing changes in vegetation types with graphs and charts.
Three mobile screens showing land cover data for Wellington Region in 2012 from LAWA (Land Air Water Aotearoa). The first screen displays a data table with various land cover classes and their areas; the second shows a bar chart of land cover changes between 1996 and 2012; the third features a line graph depicting changes in land cover over time.
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Impact

  • Increasing public engagement, with LAWA recording over 2.4 million page views in the last five years, demonstrating the platform’s growing influence.

  • Leading a high-impact summer campaign with the Can I swim here? topic attracting 120,000 users, while the social campaign reached 180,000 people and increased the platform’s follower base by 34%.

  • Improving data consistency across councils through standardised data collection processes.

  • Enhancing decision-making for policymakers and researchers by providing clearer insights into environmental trends.

Maps and data on groundwater quality indicators in New Zealand, showing site information and analysis from LAWA.