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Lake Taupo long-term monitoring programme 2017-2018

TR 2019/18
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Author: Piet Verburg and Anathea Albert (National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA))

About this report

Waikato Regional Council has commissioned a long-term programme to monitor water quality of Lake Taupo with the expectation that the trophic status will slowly change to reflect changes in land use within the lake's catchments. This programme commenced in October 1994 and is conducted by NIWA with field assistance from the Department of Internal Affairs, Taupo Harbourmaster’s Office. This report presents the results from the 2017-2018 monitoring period.

The monitoring programme was designed to detect change through assessment of the lake’s water quality.

The long-term monitoring programme uses the historical mid-lake site, Site A. Previous work determined that the near-shore water quality was very similar to the mid-lake water quality.

Read or download the report

Lake Taupo long-term monitoring programme 2017-2018 [PDF, 5.7 MB]

Contents
Executive summary
1 Introduction
2 Methods
2.1 Report contents
2.2 Statistical evaluation
2.3 "TREND" definition
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Temperature and mixing
3.2 Dissolved oxygen
3.3 Secchi depth
3.4 Phytoplankton
3.5 Nutrients in the upper water layer
3.6 Vertical profiles
3.7 Nutrient accumulation in the hypolimnion
4 Summary
5 Acknowledgements
6 Glossary of abbreviations and terms
7 References
Appendix 1 - Site map, sampling strategy and methods
Appendix 2 - Temperature and dissolved oxygen data
Appendix 3 - Nutrient data
Appendix 4 - Phytoplankton data
Appendix 5 - Historical data