2023

Introduction to river ecology – fish, invertebrates, plants.

2 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

In this webinar we’ll follow a river from the mountains to the sea: What do you find in a small stream close to a spring? What changes when the river grows with tributaries joining? What’s special about the wide, braided river before it meets the sea? Meet the in-stream community: plants, invertebrates and fish, and why they can tell us about what’s happening in their environment. And finally: how do our activities on land change the aquatic environment?

Presenter: Sandy Haidekker

Sandy is a freshwater ecologist enthusiastic about aquatic invertebrates, stream health and stream restoration. Before she came to New Zealand Sandy was involved in the development river type specific indicator systems for stream health and researched the influence of changed water temperature regimes on invertebrate communities for the European Water Framework Directive. Since taking the big leap to New Zealand in 2008, Sandy has been working for the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council as freshwater scientist, analysing and reporting on water quality and ecology, carrying out investigations and providing science advice to inform policy development. She is now Team Leader of Freshwater Quality and Ecology, a passionate team of freshwater scientists with strong interest to apply science for healthy environmental outcomes.

To register https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/introduction-to-river-ecology-fish-invertebrates-p/

Impact of river management on river bird habitat

4 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

New Zealand’s rivers provide crucial breeding habitat for a number of threatened bird species, many of which are found nowhere else on earth.  In this webinar we will introduce you to some of the unique bird species that call our rivers home and discuss both the positive and negative impacts that river management activities can have on these species.  We will present examples of initiatives being undertaken around the country to maintain or improve river bird habitats in the context of flood mitigation or gravel extraction activities, and will discuss additional work that could be carried out in the future to further improve on these efforts.

Presenter: Nikki McArthur

Nikki McArthur is an independent ecologist specialising in the conservation management of New Zealand birds and their habitats.  Nikki has spent over a decade monitoring shorebird populations throughout the country, and has spent a number of years working with regional councils and the gravel extraction industry to improve the management of shorebirds breeding on rivers in the Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Canterbury regions.

To register: https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/impact-of-river-management-on-river-bird-habitat/

Tools that Regional Councils use to measure ecological health

9 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

How can you tell if a stream is healthy? Often, the first question that comes to mind is: Is the water clean? But chemical water quality is only one part in complex aquatic ecosystems where everything is interdependent: Plants and animals, habitat, chemical, physical and biological processes and connectivity to land and groundwater are all important components of stream ecosystems and determine if they are healthy and support a resilient and healthy community of plants and animals. How is ecological health measured and what are our obligations under the NPSFM?

Presenter: Sandy Haidekker

Sandy is a freshwater ecologist enthusiastic about aquatic invertebrates, stream health and stream restoration. Before she came to New Zealand Sandy was involved in the development river type specific indicator systems for stream health and researched the influence of changed water temperature regimes on invertebrate communities for the European Water Framework Directive. Since taking the big leap to New Zealand in 2008, Sandy has been working for the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council as freshwater scientist, analysing and reporting on water quality and ecology, carrying out investigations and providing science advice to inform policy development. She is now Team Leader of Freshwater Quality and Ecology, a passionate team of freshwater scientists with strong interest to apply science for healthy environmental outcomes.

To register: https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/tools-that-regional-councils-use-to-measure-ecolog/

Part A: Improving freshwater ecosystem health in drained and modified lowland waterways

11 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

Over the past 100 years New Zealand’s lowland waterbodies have been modified by streambed lowering, channel straightening and field drainage. Drainage has now occurred to the extent that over 90% of NZ’s wetlands have been lost. While wetland drainage has now largely ceased, lowland waterbodies are subjected to ongoing channel maintenance through mechanical macrophyte clearing, weed spraying and streambank reconstruction. These actions are undertaken to ensure the productivity of surrounding farmland and to protect homes and infrastructure from high water levels. Progressively, many lowland wetland-stream complexes have been replaced by grid-patterned drain networks. Yet, these modified waterbodies are still freshwater habitats that can harbour surprising high, and often overlooked, instream values.  

This webinar will explore how drain maintenance practices alter stream habitat and affect instream life—with a focus on freshwater fish and discuss a 10-year fish and habitat monitoring programme in Waituna Creek (Southland), which captured a major stream bank reconstruction initiative and a restoration project that included installing two-stage channels and instream habitat structures. discuss an ambitious project in the Ararira-LII River (Canterbury plains), that aims to reimagine catchment drainage by consolidating and scaling-up various alternative ecosystem friendly drainage management methods to an entire lowland catchment.

Presenter: Dr Robin Holmes

Robin is a freshwater ecologist at the Cawthron Institute. He is involved in a range of projects with a focus on river and stream restoration, freshwater fisheries management and community approaches to river heath improvement. His research interests include land-use impacts on aquatic ecology and understanding native fish and salmonid life-histories and population dynamics. Recently, he has been involved in projects to enhance freshwater ecosystem values within agricultural landscapes, through actively restoring physical / structural stream habitat and promoting alternative land and stream management practices. He has a co-lead role in supporting the current MBIE-Endeavour Fish Futures programme: https://www.fishfutures.co.nz/.

To register: https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/part-a-improving-freshwater-ecosystem-health-in-dr/

Part B: River engineering for flood control: instream ecological effects and how to monitor and manage them.

16 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

Communities and regional authorities around New Zealand actively manage river corridors to protect lives and property from flooding and erosion. There are a variety of methods to control and manage the impacts of flooding, with key actions including stop-banks, gravel extraction and managing vegetation within the active channel. In addition, various forms of bank protection are routinely employed to prevent erosion, such as rock walls, groins or managed willows. While these techniques can be effective at reducing flooding and erosion risk, they can have negative impacts on river health.  Impacts include altered hydrology, reduced habitat complexity and reduced connectivity with floodplain habitats (e.g., riparian areas and floodplain wetlands). Collectively, these effects can reduce fish and macroinvertebrate habitat quality with flow-on consequences for overall river health.

This webinar will discuss the potential ecological impacts of river engineering (for flood control) and pair these impacts with potential actions to minimise and / or mitigate instream ecological impacts. This session will draw on the general river management literature and reflect on my recent experience in the Hawkes Bay region. Here I was involved in developing an ecological monitoring plan, with HBRC, to help manage the potential ecological effects of gravel management in the braided rivers of the Heretaunga plains.

Presenter: Dr Robin Holmes

Robin is a freshwater ecologist at the Cawthron Institute. He is involved in a range of projects with a focus on river and stream restoration, freshwater fisheries management and community approaches to river heath improvement. His research interests include land-use impacts on aquatic ecology and understanding native fish and salmonid life-histories and population dynamics. Recently, he has been involved in projects to enhance freshwater ecosystem values within agricultural landscapes, through actively restoring physical / structural stream habitat and promoting alternative land and stream management practices. He has a co-lead role in supporting the current MBIE-Endeavour Fish Futures programme: https://www.fishfutures.co.nz/.

To register https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/part-b-river-engineering-for-flood-control-instrea/

Estuarine Ecology

16 May 2023 - 11.00am – 12.00pm

Estuaries are coastal waterbodies where freshwater meets the ocean. They host a diversity of flora and fauna, act as conduits for migratory species, and are transition zones where transformations of energy and matter occur. In addition to their ecological importance, estuaries are places of significance for the people of Aotearoa, delivering substantial economic and cultural value. This talk will review key ecological functions in estuaries and how they translate to goods and services that we value. The influence of land-based contaminants delivered to estuaries via freshwater and the difficulties of managing these ecosystems will also be covered.

Presenter: Drew Lohrer

Dr Drew Lohrer has been working as an estuarine and coastal seafloor ecologist at NIWA since 2002, and is now Principal Scientist and Strategy Manager of NIWA’s Coasts & Estuaries Centre. Drew’s research specialty is ecosystem functioning—how seafloor invertebrate communities influence important ecosystem processes such as primary production and organic matter breakdown—and how loadings of sediments and nutrients from land impact estuarine health and functioning.

To register https://www.engineeringnz.org/courses-events/event/estuarine-ecology/

STRATEGIC OVERVIEW OF RIVERS & CATCHMENTS: GEOMORPHOLOGY & RIVER MANAGEMENT

2-day workshop – Wellington

14 & 15 February 2023  Tuesday 30 May & Wednesday 31 May 2023

Day one: classroom

Day two: field trip, Waikanae

Cost – $900.00

Council Staff – $200.00 discount

Rivers Group - 10% discount

Please mention discount when making the booking

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

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, relation to flood hazards).

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 (modeling) 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

TOOLS IN FLUVIAL GEOMORPHOLOGY WORKSHOP

Thursday 16 February Thursday 1 June 2023

Wellington

Full-day, 8-hour workshop

$600.00

Council Staff – $200.00 discount

Rivers Group Members - 10% discount

Please mention discount when making the booking.

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

Key learning outcomes

Familiarity with a series of tools useful for geomorphic analysis in river systems.

NB: Please note this workshop introduces these tools by way of demonstration and does not provide technical specialist instruction.

Key themes

•             Conceptual principles: The River Styles Framework

•             Leveraging LiDAR and SfM surveys to map rivers’ physical habitat mosaic

•             Manual and automated mapping approaches for channel, floodplains, and riparian areas

•             Geomorphic Change Detection and NCI (Natural Character Index)

•             Sediment transport principles

•             1D and 2D approaches to river morphodynamics

•             Network-scale considerations: Geomorphic hotspots

•             Mapping catchment connectivity

An overview of readily available Toolkits in Aotearoa New Zealand

• LIDAR
• REC

Presenters

Ian Fuller, Gary Brierley, Jon Tunnicliffe

FLOOD HYDROLOGY WORKSHOP

Monday 6^th March 2023

Full day workshop

ECAN, Christchurch

$600.00

Council Staff – $200.00 discount

Rivers Group Members - 10% discount

Please mention discount when making the booking.

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

Part A. Overview

1. What is flood hydrology, and its applications?
2. Flood probability and risk concepts explained
3. What are the approaches for flood estimation? [Probabilistic e.g., flood frequency analysis, versus Deterministic viz. rainfall-runoff modelling]
4. Their pros and cons and when to use each
5. Uncertainty and reliability

Part B. Flood Frequency Analysis (FFA)

1. Review of practices in NZ, Australia and elsewhere
2. Elements of FFA process (6 steps from review of flow data quality to goodness-of-fit)
3. Inclusion of historic data in FFA (pre-modern records)
4. Climate change adjustment
5. Practical aspects and worked examples

Part C. Rainfall – Runoff Modelling

1. Review of practices in NZ, Australia and elsewhere
2. Continuous versus single event simulation, distributed versus lumped models
3. Developing design rainstorms
4. Model calibration approaches
5. Worked examples

Part D. Wrap-up

1. Summary
2. Q & A
3. Additional resources/learning

Presenter David Leong | Technical Director, Hydrology & Hydraulics, Tonkin + Taylor

LOWLAND DRAINAGE OPERATIONS AND RIPARIAN MANAGEMENT - Field Trip

Monday 3 April 2023

8.00am – 5.30pm

Tauranga

$500.00

Council Staff – $200.00 discount

Rivers Group Members - 10% discount

Please mention discount when making the booking.

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

Key Learning Objectives/Outcomes

Develop an understanding of lowland drainage and pumping systems operations and management, with a selection of drainage riparian best practice and water quality enhancement works. The field trip will incorporate a range of common drainage maintenance methods with discussion around water quality issues, environmental guidelines, best practice riparian management, habitat restoration and water quality treatment via constructed wetlands.

The field trip will be most beneficial to practitioners involved with drainage system maintenance and operations and there will be good opportunities to share experiences and lessons learned from other areas.

The field trip will take place around the Te Puke – Maketū area (Bay of Plenty) and comprise a range of operational, land management, cultural and science presenters to explore contemporary drain waterway management that is sympathetic to indigenous fish species (mainly inanga and tuna), terrestrial birdlife and cultural values.

Bay of Plenty (like many other regions in NZ) has had many thousands of hectares of wetland/saltmarsh areas historically drained to create valuable farmland. This field trip/seminar will look at how stakeholders are working together to enhance the waterways (including artificial and modified watercourses) to maximise their potential for restoring water quality and habitat for indigenous species.

Key themes

Drainage maintenance methods: A wide range of drainage maintenance options will be demonstrated including weed cutting options, herbicide spraying, saltwater flushing, biological controls (grass carp), and mechanical clearing using hydraulic excavators.

Drain riparian practice: Various styles of drain and waterway riparian management will be demonstrated including examples of DairyNZ best practice guidelines.

Native fish passage & habitat: Examples of inanga ponds, inanga spawning preferences and spawning area enhancement works. The field trip will also include various examples of fish passage through floodgated structures.

Environmental guidelines: Discussions around the new National Works in Waterways Guideline produced by MfE and how drainage works will recognize the guidelines.

Cultural perspectives: The seminar will include a presentation from local Iwi/Hapū to explain cultural values and the importance the mauri of the waterways and taonga species.

Constructed wetlands: The tour will include a site visit to a recently constructed treatment wetland installed to intercept nutrient-rich runoff from an agricultural catchment before it enters the drainage network. Presenters will discuss design and costs for the project and lessons learned.

Wildfowl habitat: [optionally possible to invite F&G to present on wildfowl preferences]

Itinerary TBC

• Pick up 8.00am Trinity Wharf
• Pick up 8.30am Airport Tauranga
• SH2 south (via TEL motorway) to Wilson Road – North, to near Maketu township [stop for site visit]
• Maketū township to Maketū Road, to Kaituna Road, to Ford Road [site visit to Maketū estuary control structure & walk to nearby sites of interest]
• Ford Road, Kaituna Road (heading west) to Pah Road [stop for site visit]
• Pah Road, Kaituna Road (heading east) to Te Tumu Road, Maketū Road (under TEL), Te Puke Highway (through Te Puke township), back onto SH2
• Return to airport 5pm
• Return to hotel 5.30-6pm

Participants will need to be able to walk over rough terrain and have sturdy footwear (& waterproof clothing if wet).

COMMUNICATION AND ENGAGEMENT | Level 1

Thursday 15 June 2023
9am - 1pm

Interactive Online Workshop

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

This level 1 module focuses on building a foundational understanding of good communications practices as they relate to engagement in your everyday role, including stakeholder engagement and communicating complex subject matter to lay people.

Good public communication and stakeholder engagement skills are important to have in a river teams’ tool kit. These can assist you when communicating with the public, as well as to the media, and can apply to all sorts of situations such as public consultation or engagement and crisis/issues management.

This will be delivered online in one 4-hour morning session using a combination of presented materials and interactive learning. Preparation prior to the module is not required, though some optional preparation guidance will be provided to participants to maximise their learning experience.

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

• What is a stakeholder?
  • How do we assess the interests of a stakeholder?
  • How do we differentiate stakeholders?
• What does successful engagement look like?
  • What are the benefits of effective engagement?
  • What are the various channels of engagement?

SKILLS ACHIEVED

• Understanding engagement
  • Best practice public consultation and communication
  • Stakeholder engagement tools and practices
• Making technical information accessible
  • Why connecting with a lay audience is important
  • Making technical information meaningful to lay audiences
• Creating a deeper understanding
  • Through imagery and examples
  • Creating quick facts and statistics

Cultural and Environmental Values  

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Legal Obligations River Legislation Series Values