Coasts

NIWA is looking for people who have had a long association with the Hauraki Gulf or Marlborough Sounds to help them with a research project on juvenile fish habitats.

The main breeding population of New Zealand sea lions at the Auckland Islands has halved in size since the late-1990s; NIWA scientists are working with the government and experts from around New Zealand and overseas to understand why.

A NIWA-led project to tackle coastal acidification in New Zealand.

Estuaries and coasts provide a wide range of benefits to New Zealanders – “ecosystem services”. However, we still don’t know enough about these ecosystem services – a challenge NIWA and other scientists are tackling with a new technique.

An experiment in Henderson Creek, Auckland, has demonstrated how tidal creeks variously import, export and deposit sediment, depending on the wind and freshwater runoff, and modulated by the tide.

Mangrove forests, which are important parts of estuarine ecosystems in a number of ways, are sensitive to changing sea level.

The seaweed known colloquially as nori in Japanese - used for making sushi - or karengo in Maori has been reclassified by an international team of scientists including NIWA's Dr Wendy Nelson.

River plumes form one of the primary connectors between river-estuary systems and the coastal ocean.

Understanding how material released into the ocean spreads is very important in the case of oil spills, sediment transport and the release of invasive species. 

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. 

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.