Freshwater Update 86, July 2021

There’s no business like snow business

On a still and sunny summer day when most Kiwis were looking longingly towards the beach, two NIWA staff had their eyes firmly on the Southern Alps.

Unlocking the value of community-based freshwater monitoring data

Work is underway to develop a proposed national quality assurance (QA) framework for community-based monitoring (CBM) of Aotearoa New Zealand’s freshwaters.

Fish climb ramps to inform fish passage guidelines

New Zealand’s native fish are doing their best to climb up ramps in a NIWA laboratory so scientists can learn how to better help them navigate our tricky waterways.

EFlows Explorer – a webtool to aid broad-scale river flow management planning

Increasing rates of water use in New Zealand are causing changes to the magnitude, duration, timing, rates of change and predictability of fluxes of water in rivers, wetlands, and groundwater systems.

Estimating stream shade at the reach scale

Riparian trees strongly modify stream habitat – most notably by shading. Riparian shading keeps stream water cool and inhibits the growth of nuisance aquatic algae and plants (Figure 1). Most of New Zealand’s approximately 400,000 km of stream length was originally heavily shaded by native riparian forest but clearing trees for agriculture and other uses has exposed many streams to direct solar heating.

Field teams and forecasters cover monumental rainfall event

Feature story

9 June 2021

The prodigious rainmaker that hit Canterbury earlier this month saw NIWA field teams out in the elements collecting flood data from bridges, cableways and jetboat gaugings.

Staff Profile - Channa Rajanayaka

I am a groundwater modeller with the Hydrology Group in Christchurch.

NIWA