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Posted on Tuesday 17 September 2019

Maritime Museum Talk: Forecasting contamination

News
2 minute read

Watch recordings of our second NZ Maritime Museum breakfast talk on 19 August 2019. Ben Knight and Lincoln Mackenzie spoke about their research on forecasting and detecting marine contamination and harmful algal blooms.


New Zealand coasts are at the ‘end of the pipe’ for discharge from local rivers and streams, so seawater quality is sometimes compromised by bacteria from land-based activities. This can affect the revenue of shellfish growing areas and close local beaches to public use.

Near real-time forecasting of contamination

Ben Knight (Cawthron Institute) described a forecasting tool that provides a real-time ‘weather map’ prediction of bacteria in the sea.

Sensing algal blooms in the sea

Lincoln Mackenzie (Cawthron Institute) discussed two innovative simple, cost-effective and sensitive tests for early detection of harmful algal blooms (HABs). These tests can be used by public health agencies, the aquaculture industry and communities.

Lincoln Mackenzie (Cawthron Institute) discusses new tools for sensing harmful algal blooms in the sea.

Question and Answer session  


Upcoming event

Our next breakfast talk at the NZ Maritime Museum is Empowering Kaitiaki on Monday 23 September with Caine Taiapa, Regan Fairlie and Reon Tuanau. 

Registration is free, but bookings are required.

 

Related projects & activities

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Early detection of harmful algal blooms
We trialled two innovative technologies to detect and monitor harmful algal blooms in coastal waters
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This project has produced or contributed to
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Forecasting contamination risk for shellfish harvest and beach use
We have developed a near real-time forecasting tool for Tasman and Golden Bays to help predict when aquaculture sites and beaches are safe to access.
More
This project has produced or contributed to