River Lake contributed to the Lagoon Technical Group (LTG) and Catchment Technical Group (CTG) advising Southland Regional Council on interventions to protect and restore Waituna Lagoon.
Waituna Lagoon is a highly valued, large brackish coastal lagoon and a wetland of international importance (Ramsar site). Ruppia (seagrass) is a key stone species central to the ecological functioning, of the lagoon. It is threatened by nuisance filamentous algae, sedimentation, an an opening regime that can increase salinity when the seagrass is germinating.
Our work included:
Analysing water quality state and trends;
Assessing the risk of the lagoon ‘flipping’ to a dirty water state;
Contributing the the development of lagoon guidelines with quality targets for lagoon health, and management options.
Setting nutrient limits for complex ecosystems is challenging. We used multiple lines of evidence to set robust nutrient limits to safeguard the macrophyte community in Waituna Lagoon.
Read more in our paper on setting nutrient limits for lakes (click the link below).
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Keith at River Lake coordinated an expert panel to develop possible attributes and thresholds relevant to the ecosystem health of Intermittently Closed and Open Lakes and Lagoons (ICOLLs) and brackish lakes.
The work was undertaken for Ministry for the Environment to support the National Objectives Framework (NOF) in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM).
Read the report here.
Ecosystem Health Attributes for Brackish Lakes 2014.
