New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society (NZFSS) Conference: The effectiveness of a natural wetland in removing nitrate loads
The 2016 New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society ( NZFSS ) conference was held in Invercargill, Southland from 5 to 8th of December 2016. The conference was themed ‘Freshwater on the edge’ which reflects the push towards the edge of our scientific knowledge, including the scientific innovation to maintain and restore the health of some of our special freshwater resources. I presented my latest work on modelling in the conference session “Wetlands” on: “The effectiveness of a natural wetland in removing nitrate loads” The performance of a small natural pastoral seepage wetland was studied in the headwaters of the Toenepi catchment, Kiwitahi, Waikato from 2011 to 2013. A simple dynamic model operating on an hourly time step was used to explore potential wetland nitrate removal performance. Hourly measurements of inflow, outflow, rainfall and Penman evapotranspiration estimates were used to calculate dynamic water balance for the wetland. In addition, n...