Waingongoro Catchment
The Waingongoro catchment begins on the eastern flanks of Taranaki Maunga, and travels down through native bush before entering the ring plain and travelling through farmland, pockets of native bush and urban communities before entering the sea at Ohawe west of Hawera. The catchment area is 219.2 square kilometres. The Catchment Solutions Project team have been liaising with the Taranaki Catchment Communities (TCC), which was established by local farmers. CSP has held workshops with TCC around stream health, water sampling, and analysis of historical water quality data
Introduction
The Taranaki Catchment Communities (TCC) was formed after a group of farmers and growers from Taranaki, along with Venture Taranaki, came together early in 2020 to discuss challenges in the rural sector to develop a more environmental, economic and socially sustainable future for the communities. They are committed to using farmer-led approaches to create models and learnings.
Collaborative Catchment Analysis
The Catchment Solutions Project has been working with the TCC through community engagement opportunities to help with water testing and analysis, identifying critical flow pathways and recommending suitable mitigation technologies to help mitigate the effects of contaminants going into waterways. Next steps are to identify, from a range of options, the best site and edge-of-field structure to build to demonstrate how drainage water quality can be improved on farms in the Waingongoro catchment.
Fact & Figs
Click to enlarge the images
Community Engagement
We are working together with the catchment community in organising fielddays and workshops to better understand key freshwater quality issues, stream health, and pathways to develop targeted and effective water quality solutions.
Water testing & Analysis
Working together with the catchment group members, the Catchment Solutions Project is facilitating water testing in their streams and farm drains and offering community in-field water testing days.
critical flow pathways
An analysis of existing and new water quality data identifies losses of nitrate as a key water quality concern. Farm drains (surface and sub-surface) appear to be a critical flow pathway. However, water testing highlights spatial and temporal variability in nitrate losses via drains.
possible mitigations
Some preliminary ideas for a mitigation structure include:
- Controlled drainage could be an option, or a variation on a bioreactor to contrast with those that the CSP has built elsewhere
- Effluent paddocks could be a good site for a purpose-built structure as they have small drainage volumes, and so a smaller, but effective, mitigation structure may be lower cost
- It might be possible to use gravel or a similar material in the bioreactor rather than woodchips
Next steps include further water sampling and, in collaboration with the catchment group, the identification of a site to build a structure.