Coasts

We need information on the food web structures of our marine ecosystems in order to manage the effects on the ecosystem of fishing, aquaculture and mining, as well as understanding the potential impacts of climate variability and change on our oceans. 

NIWA is working on a ministry-funded project to produce a model, validated by 40 years of historic data, to project future wave and storm surges off the coast for two climate change scenarios.

Changes to the local environment and over harvesting have damaged shellfish populations in many estuaries. These projects examine the most effective way to restore these habitats and allow healthy populations of shellfish to return.

Seagrass beds form an important undersea habitat for small fish, seahorses and shellfish in New Zealand.

This unique project is the first systematic attempt to quantify and map environmental values of New Zealand's coastal marine ecosystem.

NIWA has developed an Urban Stormwater Contaminant (USC) model to enable urban planners to predict sedimentation and heavy metal accumulation in estuaries and identify problem areas in order to target mitigation measures.

Contamination of shellfish by faecal microbes is a health hazard to the consumer and so is of particular concern to the commercial producer.

This project was undertaken for Auckland Regional Council to identify significant sources of contaminants in the central Waitemata and southeastern Manukau Harbours.

Understanding the complexity of tidal resources in New Zealand’s coastal waters and examining how extracting tidal energy would influence and be influenced by this variability.

Estuaries are highly valuable systems that provide enormous economic and cultural benefits to all kinds of people. However, expanding human populations and urban development around estuaries is increasing contaminant loads, with metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) accumulating in sediments.

Ngā Waihotanga Iho, the estuarine monitoring toolkit for Iwi, has been developed to provide tangata whenua with tools to measure environmental changes in their estuaries. While Ngā Waihotanga Iho is based on sound science principles, it is also underpinned by tangata whenua values.