Coastal and marine indicators

Summarising our monitoring results

Waikato Regional Council regularly monitors and reports on our region's coastal resources at a number of sites throughout the region.

Our coastal environmental indicators summarise the results of these monitoring programmes, and provide a holistic report on the state of the Waikato region's environment.

Coastal biology

This indicator describes the diversity of animals that live in our estuaries.

Pollutants in sediments

This indicator monitors levels of the following trace elements and organic compounds in some of our region's estuarine sediments.

Coastline ownership

This indicator measures the public and private ownership of the Waikato region’s coastline.

Extent of coastal habitats

This indicator is based on an estimate of the spatial extent and distribution of different intertidal vegetated habitats in selected estuaries within the Waikato region.

Protected coastal areas

This indicator monitors the area of Waikato Regional Council's marine environment which is legally protected or subject to management controls.

Coastal developments at risk

This indicator identifies the area currently at risk from coastal erosion associated with natural shoreline changes and current sea level.

Shoreline protection structures

This indicator identifies shoreline protection structures along the Waikato region’s beaches and coastline areas.

Shoreline change

This indicator measures shoreline change (erosion and accretion) at a subset of sandy beaches on the Coromandel Peninsula.