Ecological condition of Waikato wadeable streams based on the Regional Ecological Monitoring of Streams (REMS) Programme 2012 – 2014 report

Report: TR 2014/46

Author: Michael Pingram, Mark Hamer (Waikato Regional Council) and Kevin Collier (University of Waikato).

About this report

As part of its Environmental Indicators Programme, the Waikato Regional Council has been conducting annual surveys of aquatic invertebrates and stream habitat to document the state and trend of the ecological condition of streams and rivers in the region since 1994 (Regional Ecological Monitoring of Streams—REMS). This report presents the second complete set of results for the three-year ‘rotating panel’ of randomly selected sites used to assess waterway ‘state’ (developed land only), and also reports updated trends for sites with ten or more years of data (across a range of land uses, restoration sites, and reference condition). Results are interpreted relative to the Reference Network of 24 sites in undeveloped catchments. There are c.70 sites for which the council now has ten or more years of survey data. These include the majority of the 41 sites on developed land (‘long-term sites’) and the 24 in more pristine catchments (‘reference sites’). Each of these sites was sampled 1 to 3 times between 2012 and 2014, depending on which network they are part of (i.e. random vs. reference vs. long-term).

The principal aims of this report were to provide an update on the 2009-2011 data reported in Collier & Hamer (2012) by:
(i) providing an unbiased estimate of the ecological condition of perennial, non-tidal, wadeable streams on developed land in the Waikato Region, incorporating macroinvertebrate, habitat, macrophyte and periphyton metrics for the years 2012-2014,
(ii) identifying temporal trends in key invertebrate metrics at sites considered to have robust long-term data, including an increased number of reference condition sites. 

This report will also provide brief comment regarding seven additional sites recently sampled and make recommendations regarding their possible future inclusion in the REMS programme.

Read or download the report

Ecological condition of Waikato wadeable streams based on the Regional Ecological Monitoring of Streams (REMS) Programme 2012 – 2014 report [PDF, 5.5 MB]