Streamcare Kaipātiki 

Working together

The Streamcare programme was established in 2018, with Kaipātiki Project in partnership with Environmental Assessments Impact Ltd, supported by Kaipātiki Local Board and Auckland Council with the collective interest in embarking on a stream state monitoring programme. The key focus of the programme is enabling the community to participate in quality citizen science and to provide publicly available data on the state of freshwater, invertebrate and fish populations in local streams.

Citizen Science

We facilitate stream workshops each term with local schools in catchments in Kaipātiki area. Working collaboratively with Pest Free Kaipātiki, the programme has also provided training for community groups to carry out freshwater monitoring. Collectively, 17 streams have been monitored. The school children’s involvement heightens their awareness of the environmental impact their actions have, taught them about stream life and scientific measuring practices, as well as prepared them as environmental champions, scientists and advocates for the awa of the Kaipātiki rohe.

We were thrilled to introduce eDNA testing during a session delivered by Dr Dan Hikuroa with Bayview School students and to launch Streamcare Kaipātiki onto the opensource Takiwa Map in partnership with Environment Hubs Aotearoa, providing each school with their own profile to keep adding their data.

Key to this programme's robust scientific component is our collaboration with EIA Ltd. Results from this programme provide a baseline of knowledge from which future comparisons can be made to determine whether land management practices in these catchments are impacting on surface water and ecology. The programme has significantly contributed to our understanding of the ecology and water quality of our awa with data being reported to NZ Water Citizens Database and  NZ Freshwater Fish Database | NIWA.

Thanks to the participating schools!

• Ako Space
• Bayview Primary
• Birkdale Intermediate
• Birkenhead Primary
• Verrans Primary
• Windy Ridge

We thank our funders and partners!