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Waihou and Piako ecological monitoring 2016

TR 2018/07
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Report: TR 2018/07

Author: National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA)

About this report

The Waihou and Piako instream ecological monitoring is annually recurring work and the long-term monitoring results will be used to detect trend changes in instream ecological composition. If we detect any significant changes in ecology, we will need to consider changing the way we manage water. This long-term accumulation of ecological data will also be valuable for the next round of Waihou and Piako catchment investigations which will happen 15 years in the future.

These catchment investigations will result in update water allocation limits for these rivers. The report shows variations in many ecological indicators both in positive and negative directions. In general, for this year, the indicators showed slight improvements in the Piako area, but a small decline in Waihou. These changes might be temporary fluctuation so we will see how these change in the next year’s monitoring efforts.

Read or download the report

Waihou and Piako ecological monitoring 2016 [PDF, 4.5 MB]

Contents
  Executive summary
1 Introduction
2 Methodology
2.1 Sites
2.2 Fish
2.3 Macroinvertebrates
2.4 Macrophytes & periphyton
3 Results
3.1 Piako catchment
3.2 Waihou catchment
4 Discussion
4.1 Piako catchment
4.2 Waihou catchment
5 Conclusions
6 Recommendations
7 Acknowledgements
8 References