Lakes380 – Our lakes’ health: past, present, future is the largest scientific study ever undertaken on lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand. The programme, jointly led by GNS Science and Cawthron ...
Waitī is a whetū in the Matariki cluster. It is the star connected to freshwater: springs, streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands and the plants and animals that live in freshwater. Aotearoa New ...
Human beings have an impact on river ecosystems. The relationship living organisms have with each other and with their environment is extremely complex. Impacts on a species or a non-living ...
The Earth has a finite amount of water. The water that is here today is the same water that will be here in 20 or even 20 million years’ time. So, if all living things use water, how is it that ...
The ecology of the river refers to the relationships that living organisms have with each other and with their environment – the ecosystem. An ecosystem is the sum of interactions between plants ...
Water in the Earth system is influencing all aspects of life on Earth. Pathways, storage, transfers and transformations have an effect on the global climate and human welfare. Within this ...
Estuaries connect land and sea. They are partly enclosed bodies of water situated at the edge of the land – a mixture of freshwater from streams and rivers and saltwater from the sea. Estuaries ...
Estuaries have a life cycle. They form, they age as they infill with sediment and they transform to other environments, such as freshwater marshes. They are fragile habitats vulnerable to time ...
A water catchment is an area of land and the water that collects and moves through it. A catchment is often bordered by hills or mountains. The water enters via precipitation (rain or snow) and ...
Clean water is vital for ecosystems and the economy. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Science (NIWA), regional councils and other agencies regularly monitor streams and rivers to ...
New Zealand has over 200 species of freshwater macroinvertebrates. An invertebrate is an animal that lacks a backbone. ‘Macro’ means the invertebrates are large enough to be seen without ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand longfin eel tuna (Anguilla dieffenbachii) is New Zealand’s only endemic freshwater eel. Our shortfin eel (Anguilla australis) is also found in Australia and some Pacific ...
New Zealand’s streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands support around 54 species of native fish including galaxiids, bullies, eels, lamprey, black flounder, torrentfish, smelt and mullet – and these ...
Wetlands are defined by the presence of water – places where water covers the soil or where it is present at or near the surface for part of the year. That’s a wide-ranging definition, so it ...
Rivers and Us is a Waikato Regional Council (WRC) initiative to help teachers, students and communities investigate the water in their local area. It explores how people use water and the effects ...
Discover information and hands-on activities about the water cycle.
Meet some of our New Zealand native freshwater fish and learn more about them and their preferred habitats. Click on the name of the fish or group of fish to learn more.
How do we know whether a stream is healthy or not? Stream monitoring and assessment is important to understanding the impacts of land use on waterways.
We usually think of insects as being animals of the land, but did you know that many insects spend part of their lives in water? Some spend all their early life underwater while others are just ...
In science, a model is a representation of an idea, an object, a process or a system. Models are often used when it is difficult to see or experience the real thing. Although we live in the ...
There are several physical, chemical and biological indicators that are monitored for water quality purposes.
In ecological terms, wetlands are ecotones – transitional habitats between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They provide a mixture of habitats and are capable of supporting a diverse range of ...
Māori have a special relationship with water in all its forms – it is taonga.
Stream health monitoring and assessment is a hands-on look at a freshwater ecosystem. It involves the measurement of water quality indicators and observations of the physical and biological ...
