Nguturoa catchment ‘Seeing Understanding Believing’ project

The project focussed on building capability and capacity for change in the farming sector, to assist in creating new pathways towards future landscapes, by identifying on-farm barriers limiting farmers’ abilities to plan for change, along with how they might be overcome in future applications.

The three farmers in this project worked alongside NIWA scientists in the Nguturoa catchment, Manawatu. They co-designed a monitoring programme for on-farm monitoring using the well-established Stream Health Monitoring and Assessment Kit (SHMAK). This will enable the farmers to assess the impacts of their own farming systems on waterways, measuring ecological health, nutrient and sediment status in water that drains critical source areas on their farms.

Stream water quality and ecological condition was measured at four sites on multiple occasions: (i) at the top of the catchment, where the stream begins, (ii) at a drainage point for each of the farms, where they enter the stream, and (iii) at the lower end of the catchment, downstream of the second farm.