100 projects
Trying things out, costing them, and planning how to take them to scale
Living Water: Dairy and freshwater thriving together
About Living Water
Mō Living Water
Farming and freshwater thriving together/Te puāwai ngātahi a te mahi pāmu me te wai māori
Living Water is a partnership between the Department of Conservation and Fonterra. We’re trialling tools, methods and approaches to enable farming, freshwater and healthy ecosystems to thrive side-by-side.
We’re working with farmers, scientists, councils, mana whenua and communities to design and test solutions to improve freshwater quality, and then sharing the results of our trials and research on this website.
Our mission
Tā tātou Whāinga
5 regions
Demonstrating dairying and freshwater ecosystems thriving together
1 mission
To build connections which can drive better outcomes for the environment, the economy and New Zealanders
Our People
Ō mātou tāngata
With nearly 40% of New Zealand’s land under our care, Fonterra and the Department of Conservation have joined forces to work on the farming and freshwater challenge.
We work on the ground, side by side. We share our expertise and use our collective strengths.
Where we’re working
Ngā wāhi e mahi ana mātou
How we’re working
Te āhua o tā mātou mahi
1
Working towards a common vision of dairy and freshwater thriving together
2
Designing and trialling solutions in five catchments
3
Measuring the impact across 10 years
4
Scaling implementation — the process and cost per farm, per region and for New Zealand
5
Championing change — to mindsets, approaches, systems and aspirations
What we’re up to
He aha tā mātou mahi
We are doers, with the big picture in mind. Check out what we have been up to around Aotearoa New Zealand.
April 2022 newsletter
Our latest newsletter is out now. Catch up on all the latest from around the catchments including a fish survey in a drought, detention bund success, how we chose the catchments & what data we needed, footage of some cryptic wetland birds and much more! http://6775268.hs-sites.com/the-latest-updates-from-living-water-3
What data do you need to tackle freshwater quality in a catchment?
An early lesson for the Living Water partnership was the lack of data available in the five catchments, we had to commission our own research. The way we collected data depended on the catchment characteristics like land area, land use, soil type, quality of existing data etc. So how we collected information varied from catchment to catchment. Read how we did it ⬇️ https://www.livingwater.net.nz/tools-solutions/catchment-scale-tools/initial-information-collected-at-site/
WATCH: Dr Clint Rissmann, Principal Scientist and Technical Director at LandscapeDNA discuss a new scientific approach to modelling water quality accounting for the influence of the natural landscape. The data will be available to landowners, catchment managers, farm advisors, catchment groups and community groups. Living Water is supporting the development of a dashboard that provides automated reporting on the spatial data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI3kCUZw6OM
Abundance of fish found in Waituna Creek despite low flows
The Waituna fish survey was able to go ahead last week in Waituna Creek, even though water levels are very low due to the drought in Southland. Eight years of research shows since rehabilitating stretches of the creek in 2018, there’s been a steady increase in the numbers of native fish including giant kōkopu, common bully, redfin bully, giant bully, tuna (longfin and shortfin eel), inanga, kanakana (lamprey) and freshwater crayfish (koura). Proof that instream habitat additions are hugely beneficial to improving freshwater fish species diversity and abundance
Tools and solutions
Ngā Taputapu me ngā Rongoā
Our projects, case studies, and resources
