The objective was to develop a way to deliver farmscale vegetation land cover detail in a repeatable way. The report documents the methodology used and the process to categorise data and incorporate farmer feedback. Improvements in land cover classification and regional training of the model would improve effectiveness of the technology. Cost effective access to satellite imagery is critical and is changing fast.

Cyclone Gabrielle (13–14 February 2023) caused widespread severe damage in the Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti/Gisborne regions. Soil erosion caused by intense rainfall deposited sediment and woody debris in river valleys and in the sea. This project measured the proportional contributions of major rivers to the cyclone sediment deposits in the sea, and describes the physical characteristics of these deposits.

River sources accounted for more than 98% of these mud-rich deposits. In northern Tairāwhiti, deposits were dominated by the Waiapu River. In Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay, cyclone sediment deposits mainly originated from the Mohaka and Wairoa-Nuhaka Rivers. These findings demonstrate that sediment plumes from Hawke’s Bay rivers were transported north along the coast, all the way around around Mahia Peninsula and deposited in Poverty Bay. The overwhelmingly land-derived origin of the marine deposits highlights the vulnerability of the East Coast to soil erosion and marine sedimentation.

Redbait is a small pelagic fish usually taken as a bycatch species in trawl fisheries around New Zealand. Some target fishing has occurred, mostly on the Chatham Rise, since the species was introduced to the Quota Management System in 2009.
Catches of redbait have varied substantially between years. In the largest fishery, in the Chatham Rise, east coast South Island, Southland and sub-Antarctic areas, catches have shown little trend over time. However, catches off the east and west coasts of the North Island and mid-upper South Island have reduced considerably since 2010.
To manage redbait within the Quota Management System, catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE)—using data from Fisheries New Zealand observers—is used to track redbait abundance. This suggests that abundance in the southern fishery peaked in 2002, and has also shown an increase during 2016–2022. Off the west coast, redbait abundance was estimated to have been high during 1999–2008, but much lower since 2010.
Stock dynamics of redbait in New Zealand remain unclear. It is possible that the southern fisheries have the youngest redbait and provide a sporadic supply of older fish to the northern fishery areas. Further sampling and ageing is required to better understand redbait stocks.

Rig (lemonfish) is a coastal shark species caught in fisheries around New Zealand. Commercial catches in the central east coast North Island fisheries (SPO 2) have exceeded the Total Allowable Catch Limit in 2022 and 2023 as a result of increased rig catches in the set net fishery that targets school shark and rig. Given this over-catch, a rapid update of the catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) index from bottom trawl—that is used for monitoring abundance of rig in SPO 2—was carried out. Rig abundance in 2023 had increased to 1.7 times the target abundance, and the stock was assessed as very likely to be at or above the target level. Near-shore catch rates of rig in Hawke Bay were reduced in 2023, potentially due to Cyclone Gabrielle impacts.

Red gurnard is an important component of inshore trawl fisheries around New Zealand. Off the central east coast of the North Island (GUR 2), the target bottom trawl fishery for gurnard is focused in Hawke Bay, with bycatch in the deeper tarakihi target fishery representing around a third of the catch.
Abundance of red gurnard in GUR 2 is monitored using catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) from the inshore trawl fishery, and a CPUE-based target abundance level has been established to facilitate its management within the Quota Management System. In this report, this information is given for 1990 to 2023. In 2023 red gurnard was assessed as being likely to be at or above the target.
Gurnard abundance appears to be cyclical, with increases and decreases occurring over 5–7 year periods. Fine-scale changes in the distribution of red gurnard within Hawke Bay and the neighbouring coastal areas are also evident in tow-level data available since 2008, with the population moving between deeper and shallower areas. In 2022 and 2023 red gurnard appear to have had a deeper distribution, but it is unclear if this is related to the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Photographic and trawl surveys of scampi on the Chatham Rise (SCI 3 and SCI 4A) were conducted in September and October 2023 from RV Kaharoa. There was an increase in number of scampi burrows, number of visible scampi, and the trawl estimate of scampi in SCI 3 compared to the previous survey in 2019. This was the first survey of SCI 4A.
As part of an investigation into scampi growth, a total of 5546 and 1172 scampi were tagged and released in SCI 3 and SCI 4A, respectively. To date no scampi have subsequently been recaptured by commercial fishing vessels.

Abundance of spawning southern blue whiting at the Bounty Platform, southeast of New Zealand, was estimated by an acoustic survey from the fishing vessel Tomi Maru 87. Two surveys (snapshots) were carried out overnight on 18–19 and 20–21 August 2023. The estimated biomass in 2023 was 62% higher than that from the previous acoustic survey in 2017. Data on the size distribution of the fish, collected by Fisheries New Zealand observers, and fish age data indicate that most adult size fish were from the 2012 and 2018 year classes.

A series of four bottom trawl surveys were carried out off the east coast of the North Island (ECNI) between 1993 and 1996 from research vessel Kaharoa and then discontinued. This project aimed to see whether a re-instated trawl survey could inform stock assessment and provide comparison with the historical estimates after more than 20 years.
One of the reasons to discontinue the time series was the presence of extensive foul ground in the ECNI survey area (estimated at 42.5%) that could not be trawled. However recent commercial effort data suggests that the proportion of foul ground was probably less (under 30%) than initially calculated.
Analysis of the original survey data suggest that it would be possible to monitor the target species (snapper, red gurnard, tarakihi, trevally, and John dory) with a similar length survey to the East Coast South Island trawl survey series.