Oceans

NIWA proudly owns and operates RV Tangaroa, a 70 m Ice Class scientific platform.

Estuaries are coastal waterbodies where freshwater mixes with seawater. Many estuaries in Aotearoa New Zealand have been impacted by pollutants and contaminants entering via freshwater.

From scallop beds to trawl nets, a little bit of data science can make a big difference. Melissa Bray explains.

Stacy Mohan looks at how the shockwaves from a remote Tongan island rippled through NIWA’s research community.

Mia Blyth catches up with a marine biologist hunting for ocean ghosts.

New findings from the record-breaking Tongan volcanic eruption are “surprising and unexpected”, say scientists from New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

High-resolution mapping has produced the first ever global estimates of coastal habitat damage caused by anchoring.

Greater Wellington Regional Council regularly assess sediment quality and seafloor community health in the subtidal areas of Te Awarua-o-Porirua (Porirua Harbour) and Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour).

NIWA is contributing to an international effort to help developing countries reduce the impact of biofouling on aquatic-based industries and environments.

Our team onboard RV Tangaroa are equipped with all the tech and tools they need to explore the undersea changes caused by the devastating volcanic eruption in Tonga earlier this year.

We have sampled 11 stations today, with different pieces of equipment, starting with rock dredges on a ridge close to Hunga Ha’apai. The samples taken returned a trove of rock specimens that got the geologist onboard excited.

The January eruption of the Tongan volcano Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai triggered tsunamis as far away as the Caribbean. NIWA scientists are onboard RV Tangaroa surveying the ocean around the volcano, working to understand the largest eruption of its kind since 1981 so they can help increase our knowledge about similar volcanoes around the world.