This morning, the Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) project has launched a new, evidence-based topic named ‘Actions for Healthy Waterways’ on their website.

The topic will present the land management actions that New Zealanders have taken throughout the country to restore water quality in rivers, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries.

Dr Tim Davie, Chair of the LAWA project, explained the significance of this initiative.

“There are massive efforts underway to improve New Zealand’s freshwater health, but until now, these actions haven’t been gathered in one accessible place for all catchments nationwide.

“The Actions for Healthy Waterways topic on LAWA provides a platform for groups and individuals to share what they’re doing and what has been achieved. This will inspire others and start to build a nationwide picture of progress.

“This is the start of a journey to understand the type and extent of land management actions within catchments and connect them with monitoring data to assess their impact on waterway health.

“We’re excited for more people to join this ambitious initiative by sharing their work,” said Dr Davie.

The ‘Actions for Healthy Waterways’ topic features data and stories from the Healthy Waterways Register, which was developed with the input of ecologists and knowledge brokers from the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge.

The Healthy Waterways Register is a secure portal for all passionate groups and individuals to record their stories and data covering riparian planting, stock exclusion, erosion control, and wetland protection.

The LAWA topic tracks progress and collates these land management efforts, presenting them online at a catchment scale with additional context to be accessed through an interactive national map or regional navigation.

Cawthron Institute Freshwater Group Manager Dr Roger Young — also a scientist with the LAWA project and part of the Our Land and Water Healthy Waterways Register development – emphasised the importance of capturing and sharing efforts underway.

“The ‘Actions for Healthy Waterways’ topic highlights evidence-based actions such as riparian planting and erosion control that we know make a difference to freshwater ecosystems.

“Sharing these efforts through LAWA highlights the incredible work already underway and encourages others to record their contributions and share their stories.

“This platform is for everyone—farmers, iwi/hapū, community groups, councils, school groups, and others. It’s free, accessible, and set up to support practical knowledge-sharing.

“Privacy is an important feature of the topic so while stories are attributed to the groups involved, actions data such as fencing is aggregated and anonymised to a catchment level.

“By contributing, you’re adding to a collective effort that will benefit New Zealand’s waterways because we’re building a clearer picture of what’s working and what’s still needed,” said Dr Young.

Dr Davie went on to highlight how the new initiative involves catchment groups and others who are proactively working to improve freshwater.

“Many people already use the LAWA website to access regional and unitary council water quality data for the waterways they care deeply about. Now, not only will LAWA continue to provide information about local freshwater health for them to use to direct their freshwater improvement efforts, but they can also be part of the project by contributing their own stories and actions data.

“This is an exciting shift for LAWA. We're moving from a sole focus on reporting environmental monitoring results, to also showing the meaningful actions happening across New Zealand to benefit our freshwater health,” said Dr Davie.

LAWA encourages New Zealanders to explore ‘Actions for Healthy Waterways’ to find examples of restoration efforts and contribute their data and stories through the Healthy Waterways Register.

© Scoop Media