Freshwater Update 76, March 2018

Enthusiatic community members have been working with NIWA and Greater Wellington Regional Council staff to monitor water quality and other indicators of importance to people who recreate in the Hutt River near Poets Park.

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) has emerged as a form of development that, among other objectives, aims to deliver resilient water ways providing a range of benefits to urban communities. NIWA’s Urban Aquatic Environments group has investigated how resilience concepts provide a basis for discriminating between WSUD and conventional urban development approaches.

Didymo, a mat-forming freshwater diatom is now a familiar and unwelcome feature of many South Island rivers. In New Zealand, it is generally accepted that didymo is an introduced organism, but not everyone accepts that. New science provides a strong case for its ‘introduced organism’ status.

The 15th International Symposium on Aquatic Plants was held in Quenstown in February 2018, bringing together scientists from 20 different countries to share their latest research, promote debate, discussion and collaboration.