Good quality water is of great importance to New Zealand and it is an intrinsic part of New Zealand’s clean green image. However, changes in farming practices, including increases in land-use intensification, are putting pressures on the quality of New Zealand’s surface and ground water resources. The overarching goal of this research is to provide New Zealand’s water managers with tools to assess, predict and minimise the impact of land use and land use changes on water quality, particularly with respect to microbial quality. This research will guide the implementation of intervention strategies that are practical and will maximise peoples’ willingness to change.

This research programme is funded by the Foundation for Research and Technology (FRST), and is a collaborative programme involving scientists from a range of organisations. Five objectives make up this research programme, these are detailed below.

Objective 1: Characterising faecal indicator and zoonotic pathogen reservoirs in grazing animals and waterfowl

This objective seeks to develop practical animal faecal microbe reservoir models for the key indicator and pathogenic enteric microbes from grazing animals and waterfowl in New Zealand. For further information about this work, please contact Lester Sinton: lester.sinton@esr.cri.nz

Objective 2: Discrimination of human, animal and bird faecal pollution in water

This objective aims to develop tools to distinguish sources of faecal contamination of water – is the source human, farm animal, domestic animal, wild animals or bird? For further information about this work, please contact Brent Gilpin: brent.gilpin@esr.cri.nz

Objective 3: Pesticide contamination of groundwater systems

This objective will characterise the leaching mobility and persistence of different pesticides through soil and subsoil profiles to groundwater, under field conditions. For further information about this work, please contact Murray Close: murray.close@esr.cri.nz

Objective 4: Modelling contaminant transport in the subsurface environment

The purpose of this objective is to model the movement of microbial contaminants in alluvial gravel and pumice sand aquifers at a range of scales, the impact of irrigated dairying on microbial groundwater quality and determine aquifer characteristics. For further information about this work, please contact Murray Close: murray.close@esr.cri.nz

Objective 5: Impact of land use on groundwater quality

This objective will examine the transport and fate of nitrate through the vadose zone and into the groundwater system; this forms part of a multi-agency collaborative project called IRAP (Integrated Research for Aquifer Protection) with Crop & Food, Lincoln Ventures, Landcare Research, Dexcel, AgResearch and Environment Canterbury. The IRAP project is developing tools to predict cumulative effects of changes in land use on groundwater quality at the aquifer scale.  For further information about this work, please contact Murray Close: murray.close@esr.cri.nz 

Services:

Water Quality

 People:

Murray Close

Lester Sinton

Brent Gilpin