Search all sites near me now
Search your favourite swimming spots
LAWA
Explore Data
Learn
Get Involved
About
Toggle navigation
LAWA
Explore Data
Regions
Auckland region
Bay of Plenty region
Canterbury region
Gisborne region
Hawke's Bay region
Manawatū-Whanganui region
Marlborough region
Nelson region
Northland region
Otago region
Southland region
Taranaki region
Tasman region
Waikato region
Wellington region
West Coast region
Topics
Air Quality
Swimming
Estuaries
Groundwater Quality
Lakes
Land Cover
River Quality
Water Quantity
Learn
Get Involved
About
Search
Search
Search results for:
Near me now
Geolocation is either not supported or not enabled for this browser.
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Estuaries
Assessing state of our estuaries
What do we mean by 'state'? The term 'state' is used to describe the current condition of a site. This assessment is usually based on a variety of indicators. For Estuary Health, the states of three indicators are considered to determine the health of the monitoring site: Mud content Contaminant...
Learn
/
Factsheets
What do the swim icons mean?
LAWA provides the most comprehensive recreational water quality information in New Zealand for you to use as a guide in deciding when and where to swim. The swim icons presented on LAWA show how water quality test results compare to national swim guidelines.
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Estuaries
Estuary macrofauna
What are estuary macrofauna? Estuary macrofauna are small, invertebrate animals in estuaries that can be seen with the naked eye (greater than 0.5 mm). There are thousands of species of macrofauna including worms, snails, crustaceans and bivalve shellfish like pipi and cockles.
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Groundwater
Calculating groundwater quality state
What do we mean by 'state'? On LAWA, we use the term 'state' to describe a site's current conditions. For a given indicator, the ‘state’ is an estimate of the concentration or value that you might expect to find in the groundwater if you were to take a sample from a well today.
Learn
/
Factsheets
Calculating water quality state for our rivers
Why are we recording the current state of our freshwaters? We measure the current state of our rivers, streams and lakes to get an idea about whether our water is suitable for use for various purposes, and about the effect of different pressures (e.g. urbanisation, farming, etc.) on the condition of...
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Estuaries
Understanding mud content in estuaries
What is mud content? Mud content refers to the amount of fine silt and clay particles (collectively called ‘mud’) that have washed off the land and are present in the surface layers of estuary sandflats. Mud is defined as sediment particles less than 0.063 mm in diameter, and is characterised by the...
Learn
/
Factsheets
Lake Trophic Level Index
The Trophic Level Index (TLI) is a method of characterising the ecological health of lakes based on the amount of nutrients and algae growing in them. It provides an integrated measure of water quality that can be tracked over time and that can be used to estimate biological productivity. It is pr...
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Estuaries
Estuary contaminants
What are estuary contaminants? Contaminants are any pollutants or substances that can become harmful to humans or living organisms when introduced into their environment. A range of different contaminants can be monitored in estuaries and generally fall into two broad categories – metals and organic...
Learn
/
Factsheets
Calculating water quality state for our lakes
Why are we recording the current state of our freshwaters? We measure the current state of our rivers, streams and lakes to get an idea about whether our water is suitable for use for various purposes, and about the effect of different pressures (e.g. urbanisation, farming, etc.) on the condition of...
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Land
Calculating land cover state
Understanding the land cover information presented The New Zealand Land Cover Database (LCDB) version 5.0 provides a series of ‘snapshots’ of land cover in the form of maps derived from satellite imagery across the country, covering the dates: 1996, 2001, 2008 2012 and 2018. At each snapshot, the s...
Get Involved
/
News And Stories
Real-time air quality data now available online
Nelson residents can now check real-time air quality in their neighbourhood through environmental monitoring website lawa.org.nz. Real time data is available for Nelson’s four air sheds – Nelson Centre/North, Tahunanui, Stoke and Nelson South.
Learn
/
Factsheets
/
Estuaries
Types of Estuaries in New Zealand
There are many frameworks that may be used to categorise estuaries. Usually, the categories reflect differences in the geological morphology of the estuary (i.e., its broad physical features such as shape and depth).
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
...
Next