Identification, quantification, modelling and economic assessment of options for the management of poultry, piggery and dairy waste to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions via anaerobic digestion and associated biogas utilisation for energy generation.

This report provides an initial assessment of the current state of awareness of and anticipated response to the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) and associated afforestation policies among pastoral farmers in New Zealand.

This project aims to design and build automated N2O gas chambers that will be added to the existing automated and mobile gas analysis system to provide a fully automated system for rapid assessment of in-field N2O emissions.

The objective of this research was to develop datasets for New Zealand building materials for use in research, policy analysis and building code development.

There is an urgent need for N.Z. to enhance its ability to conduct comprehensive impact
assessments for pastoral agriculture under projected global change scenarios.

The New Zealand Integrated Assessment Modelling System (NZIAMS) was developed between July 2010 and June 2013 by researchers at Landcare Research, AgResearch, New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, and Lincoln University. The project was led by Dr James Lennox, formerly of Landcare Research, who is currently a researcher at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Venice, Italy. Its development was funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

This report addresses using scenarios to identify climate risks for the primary sector, different modelling methods to quantitatively estimate risk impacts and the costs/benefits of adaptation options,.and reviews indicator frameworks used by the US, UK and EU. The report recommends that risk assessment should include a range of risk drivers, including physical and socio-economic and that an indicator programme is needed.

Keywords: Climate change, adaptation, risk assessment, risk identification, scenarios, primary sector, indicators

Climate change will alter land suitability for different uses globally and in New Zealand. Shifting patterns, intensities, and frequencies of rainfall, temperature, winds, storms, and distributions of pests and weeds will trigger shifts in land use in complex ways. This report assesses the implications of 11 key trends operating at broad levels and interprets them at progressively finer scales from global to local.

New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 214. 168 p.
(Manuscript 3334)

A spatial risk assessment of threats was undertaken for Hector’s and Māui dolphins, to inform a revised Threat Management Plan (TMP) for the species. A Bayesian risk model was developed using the spatially-explicit fisheries risk assessment (SEFRA) approach, incorporating revised estimates of Hector’s and Māui dolphin spatial density and intrinsic population growth rate. The risk model was used to estimate spatial overlap, annual deaths and risk for commercial fisheries and lethal non-fishery threats, including toxoplasmosis. Spatial overlap was estimated for other threats.

New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 215. 18 p.

A Bayesian Māui dolphin population model was developed integrating information from genetic “mark-recapture” and population size estimates. Model runs incorporated estimates of historical annual deaths from commercial fisheries and toxoplasmosis obtained from a separate spatial risk assessment. These models were then used to simulate the effects of estimated threat-specific mortality rates on future population growth.

New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 217. 62 p.

This study provides an indicative assessment of vessel traffic and seismic survey related noise. Vessel AIS data for the year of July 2014 to June 2015 was used to determine density and speed grids by vessel category. JASCO’s cumulative vessel noise model was used to model the sound from 15 vessel categories and two marine seismic surveys during representative summer and winter months in 1-minute time steps. Results are presented as maps, animations and plots of sound levels at static locations.

This study provides an assessment of the impact of fishing-related fatalities on the populations of 35
marine mammal (sub)species that inhabit New Zealand waters. The assessment included mortalities
caused by trawl, longline, set-net and purse-seine fisheries within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ). The risk assessment was an implementation of the Spatially Explicit Fisheries Risk Assessment
(SEFRA) method. Risk was defined as the ratio of Annual Potential Fatalities (APF; an estimate of
the number of marine mammals killed in fisheries each year) to the Population Sustainability Threshold
(PST; a measure of the population productivity). A risk index higher than one indicates that fisheries
mortalities are at a level that may prevent the population increasing to, or remaining above, half the
carrying capacity in the long term.

This report presents an assessment of the orange roughy stock off the west coast of the South Island (ORH 7B) in 2020. There was a fishery from 1985 to 1992, with the TACC peaking at 1708 t between 1989 and 1995, and the fishery was closed from October 2007. The assessment used two acoustic biomass estimates (2017, 2019) and a 2019 age frequency, completely rejecting the assumptions used in previous assessments that CPUE was directly proportional to biomass and that recruitment followed the assumed recruitment curve. This assessment is considered preliminary as work was stopped due to the conclusion that the acoustic surveys had probably missed a substantial proportion of the spawning biomass.

This report provides a 2020 update of 2014 and 2017 assessments of the East and South Chatham Rise orange roughy stock, to enable an HCR-derived recommended catch limit for 2020–21. Three age-structured Bayesian population models were fitted to biomass and composition data. Virgin biomass (B0) was estimated as 300 000–350 000 t and 2020 stock status from the base case model was 36% B0 (± 95% CIs of 30 to 41%). With a vulnerable biomass of 157 000 t, the HCR-derived recommended catch limit was 6348 t for 2020–21, with a slowing increasing population over future years.