Wetlands&Science

Towards the  end of my stay in New Zealand I took the opportunity to walk one of the Great Walks, the Routeburn Track, which is location in the Mount Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks, south-west of the South Island. For the whole track over the distance of 32 km which I walked in three days. The track winds through beautiful beech forest, across tussock-covered flats, over the Harris Saddle, passes subalpine shrublands, alpine tarns and bogs. Most interestingly, even here science follows on the footsteps. I met a couple from Thames, Coromandel. They were dairy farmers and these few days on the track were their only only holidays for the last year. We had a great conversation about sustainable agriculture and manure management. They had apparently even won an industry award for best effluent management and  they collaborated with scientists and an innovative company that developed a solution to reduce the smell of a manure. That was a great example of scientists, ent...

Today we did another Armstrong wetland visit with Dr Andrew Hughes and Dr. Ellen Petticrew and Dr. Philip Owens, visiting scientists from University of Northern British Columbia.  Dr. Ellen Petticrew and Dr. Philip Owens are focussing on sediments on their study. Armstrong wetland has also considerable layer of sediments. Armstrong's wetland is very likely the result of infilling of an ephemeral channel. Over the years since forest clearance, clay-rich soils have been transported from the steep slopes to the bottom of the gully where they have accumulated forming a wetland. Therefore shallow groundwater infiltrating though the base and sides of the wetland pass through a saturated anoxic organic sedimentary material layer with high denitrification potential. During the visit we had interesting discussions about wetland formation and how agricultural activity has potentially fastened the process.   Andrew and Ellen trying to cross the wetland ...

 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...

From 26th of August to 1st of September I attended EcoSummit 2016 in Montpellier, France.  EcoSummit 2016 focused on the ecology of terrestrial ecosystems and all habitats that are integrated within those ecosystems, including river networks, wetlands and coastlines, as well as on fragile ecosystems that are more likely to suffer the consequences of climate change and anthropogenic pressure. With agriculture being intensified we need to grow awareness of the need to preserve and use sustainably world resources.   John Phillip Gripe giving a talk about functional ecology   I had the chance to present a new take on my work at the conference in the track “Small-Scale Green Infrastructures to Mitigate Degradation of Agricultural Landscapes” on: “Identifying feasible wetland locations in catchments using LiDAR” LiDAR provides highly detailed information on the topography. In wetland ecosystems, the soil moisture is strongly correlated with the topography and co...

The New Zealand Hydrological Society ( NZHS ) aims to promoting hydrological research, promoting education in all aspects of hydrology, disseminating information through the publication of a scientific journal, newsletters, and other appropriate means. The 2015 NZHS annual conference was themed ‘From Data to Knowledge’ and the society’s mission is to further the science of hydrology and its application to the understanding and management of New Zealand's water resources. I had the chance to present my latest work in the conference track “Monitoring and Data Management” on: “Identifying small-scale wetlands using orthophotos, satellite imagery and LiDAR” Wetlands play a key role in controlling flooding and non-point source pollution. In New Zealand, it has been estimated that over 90% of the former wetland area has been lost within a century and a half and there is an ongoing trend on wetland ecosystems. This increases the need for detailed identification and assessment of wet...

Today I visited Armstrong's wetland in Toenepi catchment near Kiwitahi village together with my colleagues Dr. Andrew Hughes and Dr. Chris Palliser. The wetland got it's name actually by the farmer on who's land it is located. NIWA has been done flow and water quality measurements on this wetland for couple of years and based on this data we will build a model for estimating wetland nutrient removal efficiency.  Armstrong's wetland on Google Maps    Andrew and Chris exploring the steep slopes around the wetland  View to the lower part of the wetland covered with flax