Planning for the 2014 NZ River Awards is well underway. The 2014 winners will be announced at the River Awards Dinner on 27 November in Wellington. Professor Gary Jones (click here) from Canberra will be the guest speaker at the dinner.
The basis for this year’s Awards is the trend in dissolved reactive phosphates (DRP) data, which is available from the new LAWA website. LAWA has a wealth of valuable information on New Zealand rivers and water quality. The judges for this year’s Awards are Clive Howard-Williams (NIWA), Roger Young (Cawthron Institute) and Shirley Hayward (Dairy NZ) – Clive and Roger were on the 2013 judging panel.
The 2014 NZ River Award Dinner will have a Supreme Award for the most improved river in the country based on trend data for phosphate levels. There will be Awards for the second and third most improved rivers as well.
There will also be an Award for the most improved river/stream in each regional council area (except where there is insufficient data or there is no river/stream showing a statistically significant improvement).
This year we will highlight a River Story from each region noting the action being taken by individuals, schools, communities, NGOs, Councils and others to improve the health of a local river or stream. The Morgan Foundation will select and promote three finalists from which we will pick and make an Award to the 2014 River Story.