Awatapu Lagoon is a 12.9 ha oxbow lake created when the Ōhinemataroa / Whakatāne River was straightened in 1970. The lagoon has poor water quality but provides good ecological values for birds and has high potential for restoration.
River Lake has undertook monitoring and a series of investigations to characterise the water quality of Awatapu Lagoon and identify practical options for improvement.
Improvement of water quality in Awatapu Lagoon over the long term will require multiple actions over a sustained period to reduce nutrient loads (internal and external) and enhance natural processes that attenuate nutrients. Reducing the biomass of hornwort is a high priority that would provide multiple benefits. However, maintaining some aquatic plants is also important for maintaining reasonable water quality in small natural lakes.
The report for Whakatāne District Council can be found here:
Te Awa o te Atua /Matatā lagoon is an outstanding example of a complex dune land-wetland-open-water system on a freshwater-saltwater interface. It has high botanical values and provides high value breeding and feeding habitat for a large number of water birds.
The western lagoon was remediated in about 2010, however the width of aquatic emergent wetland vegetation on the margin of the western lagoon remains considerably less than what was intended to regenerate into shallow wetland habitat following the post-flood remediation.
River Lake Ltd and Place Group undertook water quality, fish and vegetation surveys to assess the ecological health of Te Awa O Te Atua / Matatā Lagoon and identify ways to improve its values.
The report for Whakatane District Council can be found here:
Sullivan Lake is a small (2.7ha), shallow, urban lake located in Whakatāne which has had persistently poor water quality. River Lake has undertook monitoring and a series of investigations to characterise the water quality of Sullivan Lake and identify practical options for improvement.
The report for Whakatāne District Council can be found here:
River Lake analysed water quality from 12 Rotorua Te Arawa lakes to better understand potential causes of interannual variability of the Trophic Level Index (TLI); and explored ways to account for natural variability when expressing TLI targets.
Long-term water quality trends were statistically analysed. The report documents adjustments required for phosphorus data in order to account for laboratory analytical changes over the period 2010-2019.
