Freshwater quality

It may be rubbish to everyone else, but to Amanda Valois each little scrap of plastic on a river bank or in a waterway tells a valuable story.

New Zealand is a land of erosion. We’re losing about 192 million tonnes of soil a year, according to the latest report Our Land 2018, from the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics NZ.

A project to restore a stream catchment in Kaikōura—damaged in the 2016 earthquake—is being described as inspirational by NIWA scientists.

The hard concrete surfaces that characterise New Zealand towns and cities are barely likely to register as a problem with most people. But they're never far from the minds of our urban water researchers.

EFSAP is a water planning and management tool designed to assist with setting regional or large-scale water resource use limits for rivers.

On the bottom of New Zealand’s largest freshwater springs is an underwater garden of vivid green, pinks and inky blues.

NIWA freshwater scientists have completed monitoring the ultra-clear water of the Te Waikoropupū Springs near Takaka.

Ruth Beran discovers that public interest in the state of fresh waterways has driven a dramatic change in the tools used by scientists.

A group of volunteers who love the Hutt River are helping to care for it over summer.

Citizen scientists take on Hutt River

A new online survey is forming the basis of the National Riparian Restoration Database, which will help scientists to improve understanding of how riparian buffers benefit waterways.
Take the survey