Better tools mean improved knowledge and services

Better tools mean improved knowledge and services

Environmental research and consultancy is increasingly moving from an era of ‘occasional observation’ to ‘realtime monitoring’, allowing better understanding and decision-making about environmental management.

For the marine environment, where data-gathering is inherently more difficult and expensive, continued investment in new instruments with capability for in situ and real-time monitoring is crucial.

We can also now access better and more sophisticated computer models to predict the causes and consequences of environmental change, whether it be more mud being discharged at the coast by rivers, or the fate of urban contaminants in estuaries.

This issue of Coasts & Oceans Update outlines some of the new equipment and research tools NIWA will purchase for our work in New Zealand’s coastal and marine environments. We will invest over one million dollars in new ‘strategic’ instrumentation over the next 12 months in this area.

As you will see from the examples below, this new equipment offers a diverse array of capabilities – from examining sediments beneath mussel farms, to using flexible grid models for coastal sedimentation studies, to further developing buoy technology for future web-based monitoring of a coastal observation network.

To talk about how these new tools and equipment can be of service to you, please contact the NIWA National Centre for Coasts & Oceans.

Ian Wright, Centre Leader

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