Catch up for coffee with your regional river group members

Date Friday 4 July2025

Time: 10.30am

 

Location: Wellington

Flight Coffee Hanger Café

 

Location: Christchurch

THE WELDER, 22  Welles Street

Council Conversations:

Let's connect, share an idea, talk about issues and work on solutions as a team. Followed by networking.

To join email rachael.armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

 

 

River Mouth Management

Date: 1 September 2025

Location: Wellington

Time: 9.00am-4:30pm (catering included)

Cost: $800 plus GST. Council staff $200 discount

Register by emailing: Rachael.Armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

Spaces are limited!

 

Improving Outcomes from River Mouth Management

A full-day interactive workshop for local authority staff, consultants, researchers, and contractors.

This workshop will provide an interactive forum to deepen your understanding of the natural processes occurring at the interface between rivers and the coastline and the methods for managing river mouth openings.

Participants will collaborate to produce a shared learnings document for river mouth management. This will include how river mouth management fits within the overall flood risk management strategy for a river, the level of certainty that can be relied on and future challenges with increased rainfall intensity, sea level rise and more severe storm surges.

Please note: This workshop does not cover emergency management responses during an event.

Key themes

• River mouth types and issues
• Coastal influences
• Geomorphological processes
• Management options
• Decision making frameworks
• Monitoring and forecasting

Outcomes

• Improved understanding of river mouth processes
• Practical insights into management tools and execution

Workshop Agenda

• Introductions & Scene Setting
• Physical Processes
• Management Options
• Monitoring & Forecasting
• Outcomes, triggers, modelling, risk

Presenters

Kyle Christensen & Richard Measures

Resilient Infrastructure: Riverine vegetation and weed species management

Overview

This two-day workshop is designed for practitioners involved in river management to build skills in managing riverine vegetation and controlling weed species within Canterbury's braided river systems. It will focus on best practices for balancing flood protection, biodiversity, and resilience through strategic vegetation approaches.

Workshop Format

• Day One (Classroom-based)
  Presentations and discussions covering identification, management strategies, and native species integration.
• Day Two (Field-based)
  Site visits based to several locations on the Waimakariri to observe practical examples of species identification, weed control methods, and native planting approaches.

Key themes

Braided river weeds in Canterbury

Willows. Tools and weeds.

Resilience, Adaption & Transition

Outcomes

A better understanding of braided river vegetation management

Who would benefit?

Practitioners practical level and engineers, operators, consultants and contractors actively involved in river management, or who have a specific interest in and experience of rivers and their management. Also relevant to Operations staff who manage delivery of multi-value community benefit or biodiversity restoration projects within a flood-protection scheme.

Presenter

Greg Stanley, ECAN

When

24 – 25 September 2025

Where

Epic Innovation, Christchurch CBD

Time

Two full days (9:00am-5.00pm) Exact times to be confirmed

Cost

$800.00 plus GST. Council $200 discount

Spaces limited

To register email Rachael.Armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

 

Course Outline

Braided river weeds in Canterbury

• Intro to braided river context. Different reaches and conditions.
• Intro to weediness- what is moving where?
• Intro to basic identifications and ID tools.
• Intro to native braid vegetation.
• Vegetation stature, groups and transitions.
• RPMP weeds and control in Braids.
• Large scale control program example
• Typical weed control strategies.
• What can successful weed control look like in river management?

Willows. Tools and weeds.

• Groups, tree and shrub willow
• Species, hybrids and cultivars
• Problem species. Examples.
  • Grey willow in adjacent wetlands
  • Purple willow in braids and behavioural changes.
• Control programs and outcomes.
• What can management look like in future?

Resilience, Adaption & Transition

• NbS & room for river considerations; weed impacts.
• Change and transition programs, work to change vegetation stability, diversity and cover over time.
• Balancing native vegetation with management demands
• Planting specifications for multiple values examples.

Recap, overview & open discussion.

Site visits to several locations where identification and control has been undertaken.

International Adaptation Futures conference is taking place this year in New Zealand for the first time.

This landmark hybrid event will unite over 1500 scientists, policymakers, and changemakers to collaborate on solutions for climate resilience and adaptation.

What makes #AF2025 unique?

• Indigenous Solutions & Small Island States: Dive into essential discussions tailored to these communities.
• Art Outreach: Engage with inspiring public art events showcasing creative climate responses.
• Regional Pavilions: Explore insights from Oceania, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
• Workshops: Connect at early-career networking events, plus sessions on managed retreats, Pacific responses, and more, hosted by leading New Zealand universities.

Arrive early for pre-conference events on 12 October or stay for post-conference workshops.

Limited grants are available for students, LDC participants, and Indigenous scholars to ensure broad participation.

Save the date and join us!

Visit https://adaptationfutures2025.com for more details, including registration, schedules, and participation options.

We look forward to seeing you in Christchurch—or online—as we collaborate to shape a resilient future.

 

Key Learning Objectives/Outcomes

Familiarity with key principles in fluvial geomorphology and their application to various river management situations (e.g., catchment (and regional) planning, sediment flux issues, and relation to flood hazards). Build familiarity with key principles in fluvial geomorphology and their application to various river management situations 

When

Monday 20 October - Tuesday 21 October 2025 TBC

Where

Wellington and Waikanae

Time

Two full days (8am-5pm)

Exact times to be confirmed

Cost

$950.00 plus GST for 2-day course. Council rate – $800.00 plus GST

Where to register

Email Rachael Armstrong - Rachael.Armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

Key themes

Management issues for which geomorphic insight is fundamental:

• Work with the river (nature-based solutions) – respect diversity, work with process
• Determine what is realistically achievable
• Be proactive, precautionary, pre-emptive – tackle threatening processes
• Risk management
• Integrated Catchment Management
• Active and passive practices (including the do-nothing option) – hard versus soft engineering practices … Role of maintenance (weed management)
• Flood management/protection versus ‘living with a living river’
• Managing river erosion
• Using sediment budgets to manage sedimentation issues (including sand/gravel extraction)

Spatial Dimensions of geomorphologically-informed river management

Catchment

• Fundamental geomorphic unit
• Longitudinal profile – source, transfer accumulation zones
• Network relationships (tributary-trunk stream pattern, flux)
• Connectivity relationships

Channel planform: Braided, wandering gravel-bed, active meandering passive meandering, discontinuous watercourse (wetland/swamp)

Channel geometry

• Downstream and at-a-station hydraulic geometry
• Size and shape

Geomorphic units

• Erosional and depositional forms (and process relations)
• Channel (instream) and floodplain
• Assemblages – and approach to analysis of morphodynamics, condition, recovery (Fryirs & Brierley, 2021)

Bed material size

• Bedrock, Boulder/cobble, gravel-bed, sand-bed, fine-grained
• Bedload, mixed load, suspended load

Temporal dimensions of geomorphologically-informed river management

Timescale: Geologic, geomorphic, engineering

Magnitude-frequency relations

Equilibrium versus non-linear relations

Legacy effect (landscape memory)

Processes of geomorphic river adjustment

• Balance of impelling and resisting forces
• Stream power, shear stress
• Resistance elements – role of riparian vegetation, wood, ecosystem engineers
• Entrainment, transport, deposition (Hjulstrom curve)
• Sediment transport – Bedload, suspended load, solution load
• Aggradation/degradation regime – Lane Balance

Evolutionary trajectory of rivers (and recovery potential)

• Relating character and behaviour (capacity for adjustment/range of variability) to evolutionary trajectory
• Scoping (modelling) prospective river futures to determine what is realistically achievable in management

Geomorphology and river health (condition)

What do we measure where, how and why?

What do we measure against?

Geomorphic relations to Māori conceptualisations of rivers

A living river ethos, mauri, mana, ora

How geomorphology can support river management (indicative only – set up follow up specialist courses)

Scoping river futures - Proactive and precautionary approaches to Visioning & Catchment Planning

Concern for treatment response

Geoethical considerations – concerns for social and environmental justice

• Risk management
• Integrated Catchment Management
• Active and passive practices (including the do-nothing option) – hard versus soft engineering practices … Role of maintenance (weed management)
• Flood management/protection versus ‘living with a living river’
• Managing river erosion
• Using sediment budgets to manage sedimentation issues (including sand/gravel extraction)

Presenters: Ian Fuller, Gary Brierley, Jon Tunnicliffe

Level One Asset Management Course

This course provides a contextual overview of the core elements of Asset Management (AM). Using case studies across different industries we will explore the benefits of Asset Management, required practices, lifecycle management, risk management and how to move forward on the AM journey. At the conclusion of this introductory course, participants will have a clear understanding of the key elements of AM and how to compile an asset management plan that aligns with organisational outcomes.

Syllabus

• Introductions and Course Overview
• Asset Management Overview
• Asset Management – The Organisational Context
• What is the State of my Assets?
• Valuing Assets and Understanding lifecycle implications
• Levels of Service – Do my assets deliver what is needed?
• Risk Management
• Lifecycle Management
• The Asset Management Plan
• Continuous Improvement
• Managing the AM Journey
• Summary

Presenter: Catherine Bayly 

Catherine is an experienced Infrastructure and Asset Manager. She has worked with and for local government organisations for over 20 years in NZ, Australia and the UK. Example work includes physical delivery of capital projects up to $300m, management of city assets, auditing AM competency of international water and river management schemes and most recently the design and completion of a national asset management system for the NZ Water Industry. Cath has co-developed competency based asset management courses in Australia which have been delivered to large scale asset owners including BHP Billiton, the defence force and the water industry. Cath has competencies in all elements of asset management and is particularly passionate about continuous improvement to efficiently deliver community services

When

27 March 2025

Where

Auckland

Time

9.00 am to 5.00 pm

Cost

$900.00 plus GST.

Council rate – $700.00 plus GST

Where to register

Email Rachael Armstrong - Rachael.Armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

Rock Design for River Works

Date TBC

Location TBC

Time TBC

Cost $500 plus GST.

Council staff $100 discount 

A workshop for designing rock revetments and groynes for River Works

A half-day workshop providing details of best practice methods for designing rock for use in river works. A high-level introduction to geomorphology will be provided for the purpose of understanding how rock works can affect river processes as well as key concepts affecting general scour design. A summary of tools for quantifying hydrological and hydraulic design parameters will be presented followed by guidance on when rock should be considered as a management tool. The design process will then be explained for rock revetments (rock lines) and groynes including general arrangement geometry, sizing, filters, and specifications. Examples will be provided of recent projects including where design/cost/maintenance trade-offs were considered.

Key themes

• Brief introduction to geomorphology – how rivers work.
• Outline tools for quantifying key design inputs – hydrology, hydraulics.
• When to use rock.
• General arrangement geometry for groynes & revetments.
• Estimating general scour (geomorphic change);
• Estimating local scour.
• Sizing rock using three different methods.
• Design of granular and geotextile filters.
• Key specifications for rock.

Outcomes

A better understanding of designing rock for use in river works.

Who would benefit?

Local authority engineers and asset managers, consultants and contractors actively involved in river management, or who have a specific interest in and experience of rivers and their management.

Presenter

Kyle Christensen - River Engineering Consultant

Spaces limited

To register email Rachael.Armstrong@hbrc.govt.nz

In essence the webinar would look to provide an overview of the Rangitikei (which has a number of unique characteristics) and how the management of the lower reach has evolved over time driven by a combination of some painful lessons, a better understanding of natural processes and a larger data set/ technological improvements to aid analysis. The paper focuses on a specific management issue downstream of the State Highway 1 bridge near Bulls highlighted with the June 2015 floods - the catalyst for the 2020 Climate Resilience Project.

Presenter Ramon Strong

Ramon is employed by Royal Haskoning as Technical Director Water based in Southland/ Murihiku. He’s a river engineer with over thirty years’ experience in the field of civil engineering, a career that started in the dirt, working for Beca as a geotechnical technician out of high school. He attended both the Central Institute of Technology (NZCE) and Canterbury University (BE) and then worked in the field of geotechnical engineer before being drawn to river engineering.

He has 20 years’ experience in regional sector leadership roles mainly with Otago and Manawatu-Whanganui (Horizons) and has extensive experience in river engineering, land drainage, flood modelling, stopbank and dam engineering, and geotechnical engineering. He’s a Chartered Professional Engineer and currently part of the NZ Society on Large Dams management committee.

His key mentors have been the late Dick Hince, CIT hydraulics lecturer, and Colin Hickling, a stalwart of the Wellington civil engineering scene for many years, Wellington Principal for Connell Wagner [Aurecon] and now retired. Colin’s gruff exterior concealed a highly analytical mind, attention to detail and a genuine desire to ensure clients were provided with good advice – ‘old school’. If Colin started a sentence with “Tell me this…” you knew you were in strife.

Like many river engineers Ramon has an affinity for the natural environment, absorbing in part his parent’s passion for native plants, and is an avid tramper/ hiker. He’s enamoured with Southland/ Murihiku from University summer holiday employment in Invercargill and the natural wonder that is Fiordland, and when time and weather permit can be found paddling around Lake Manapouri.

To register https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GoyUflRfRYm7z90T2eXfRQ

 

The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) has funded regional councils to undertake feasibility studies on the use of nature-based solutions (NBS) for flood mitigation. A literature review was conducted by NIWA and shared at a similar webinar in November 2024. This webinar will share the outcomes from a mid-point workshop held during March 2025, held with teams from the 21 Regional Council pilots, sharing the process, the progress and the findings to date from undertaking the delivery of their pilots, due for completion at end June 2025.

Presenter - Liam Foster

Liam Foster C.WEM C.Env C.Sci FCIWEM Technical Principal – Water at WSP Liam is a Chartered Environmentalist and Chartered Scientist specialising in sustainable water management, surface water and flood risk management and recently delivered the workshop on behalf of MfE.

To register https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cJlSPt49RKe8gOf0eCvGrw

Northland Regional Council, through a NBS feasibility study funded by Ministry for the Environment (MFE), recognised early on that large-scale land use transition would be needed in the study’s Hydrological Catchment (Taumarere) to see a significant reduction in flood levels. As a result, the project focused on developing a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) using available data to assess the suitability of nature-based solutions (NBS). The MCA output identifies vulnerable locations in relation to instream erosion, steep slope erosion, and nutrient and pathogen pathways allowing the sub-catchment to be ranked. The mapping outputs provide spatially located NBS options (Forest & Native Vegetation Restoration, Erosion Control & Steep Slope Stabilisation, Catchment Management, Leaky Barriers, Silt Traps, Riparian Planting, Floodplain Connection & Restoration, Wetland Restoration) at a 1m resolution, covering the entire catchment.

This MCA serves as a key tool for landowners interested in restoration mahi, helping them identify options for their whenua and connecting them to funding opportunities and support networks. Additionally, it facilitates a structured workflow from site selection and monitoring to funded restoration projects for private landowners.

To register https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UozSfIC4Q563mg2KLBp6wg

In February 2023 the east coast of Te Ika-a-Māui/ the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand was severely impacted by ex-Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle (ETC Gabrielle), leaving a trail of destruction and 9 fatalities. The east coast has a relatively high level of exposure to the impacts of decaying ex-tropical cyclones that move south out of Melanesia/ western Polynesia, often tracking across Hawke’s Bay. ETC Gabrielle was particularly intense with sea surface temperatures in the Tasman Sea playing a part in maintaining that intensity. It’s speed and track brought unprecedented wind, rain and waves/ storm surge - some rain gauges recorded in excess of 500mm in 24 hours and peak intensities in excess of 50mm/hour. Accordingly the damage associated with this event was catastrophic for parts of Hawke’s Bay, in some places shifting residential buildings off their foundations and in other places completely burying houses in silt.

In the weeks following that event central Government instructed local councils to categorise the risk of continued occupation of impacted residential properties, with the highest risk subject to a voluntary Crown ‘buy-out’. PDP was engaged by HBRC to assist with that categorization and in particular that highest risk Category 3 delineation, based on the broad ‘risk to life’ consideration that were so dramatically highlighted with the event – the depth of flooding, velocity, rate of rise, entrained silt and debris volumes. It also included a range of other considerations – geographic features that concentrate the hazard, the availability of safe egress and the complexity of the hazard. The work culminated with the identification of close to 300 Category 3 residential properties subject to voluntary buy-out and the confirmation of around $200M in funding (excluding insurance payouts). The presentation will provide a summary of that work and highlight some of the challenges associated with it.

Ramon is a river engineer with over thirty years’ experience in the field of civil engineering and has just short of 20 years’ experience in regional sector leadership roles mainly with Otago and Manawatu-Whanganui (Horizons). He’s a Chartered Professional Engineer and current part of the NZ Society on Large Dams management committee.