Black Miller Stream Catchment

Black Miller Stream a short steep stream draining a native forested catchment, about 25 km north of the Kaikoura township. Upstream and adjacent riparian vegetation is dominated by native tree and shrub species.  The stream is a mix of pool, run and riffle/chutes and the stream bed is primarily dominated by large cobble and boulder bed substrates. Sampling after the Kaikoura earthquakes noted that the amount of fine sediment deposition and substrate embeddedness appeared to be higher along the sampling reach than it had been previously.  We did not specifically investigate changes to the instream habitat, however, seeing an impact such as an increase in the amount of fine sediment cover wouldn't be all that unusual given the large scale disturbance event that had occured.  Possible sources of fine sediment to a stream system include bank erosion and from areas of vegetation clearance upstream (either from natural or human induced disturbance). It is also possible that the overall channel morpopglogy may have been changed during the earthquakes.