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Forest Flows addressing challenges with freshwater hydrological models

June's report on freshwater models by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (https://pce.parliament.nz/publications/a-review-of-freshwater-models-used-to-support-the-regulation-and-management-of-water) highlighted the poor and fragmentary state of modelling Aotearoa's freshwater systems to support regulation and management.Planted and indigenous forests are typically located in headwaters. They are important for NZ's hydrological landscape. Existing models poorly predict forest wate...

Forest Flows Results Shared at Environmental Forestry 2024 Conference

The Forest Flows Research Programme shared its data driven results at the Environmental Forestry Conference (https://innovatek.co.nz/event/environmental-forestry-2024/) 25th-26th June 2024. The programme's main objectives is to quantify the water use of plants and trees, and the water storage and release in planted forest catchments. The conference showcased our results to a general audience, after sharing with our local communities in May.Dean Meason gave a keynote presentation on the main resu...

New Paper on Predicting Soil Water Movement and Storage in Forested Catchments in the Journal of Hydrology

Latest Scientific Paper! Soils are a crucial component of forest hydrology - for water storage and release. This Forest Flows research, led by Shanxi Agricultural University's Dr Hongfen Zhu, developed a novel way to optimise where to place sensors within a forested catchment to capture soil water movement and storage at different depths. These are called time stable locations. Thus, we need a lot less sensors to monitor soil water throughout a forest catchment. Unlike previous studies, we demon...

Forest Hydrology going to the stars

Scion was successful with two projects being funded Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment NZ-NASA Research Partnership. Dean Meason is leading one on the tree-water (hydrological) cycle from space! Building on the success of the Forest Flows Endeavour Programme, Scion has partnered with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of Massachusetts Amherst and NIWAto develop a proof-of-concept framework at different scales in the Far North/Te Hiku ō Te Ika of New Zealand. This will provi...

Forest Flows in the Spotlight for World Water Day 2024!

Forest Flows in the spotlight for International Day of the Forests and World Water Day 2024...

New Paper on Remote Sensing Dry Periods in Forests in Remote Sensing Journal

New published paper! This Forest Flows research led by University of Massachusetts Amherst Kostas Andreadis compared NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration and European Space Agency - ESA satellite data with ground sensor networks demonstrated the ability of satellite-based remote sensing to detect and quantify dry periods in planted forests in new Zealand. See link below.Previous studies had difficulties in characterizing meteorological drought f...

Sharing and learning knowledge at the Ngā Puawai o Te-Oneroa-a-Tōhe

It was an amazing experience to attend the Ngā Puawai o Te-Oneroa-a-Tōhe in Kaitāia on September 28th-30th. As one of the over 80 invited stakeholders, the remarkable wānanga brought together diverse backgrounds to deliberate the future of Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe (90 Mile Beach). It was convened under the guidance of Te Oneroa a Tōhe Beach Management Board and supported by Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa. It was a humbling experience in learning how to share the nearby site's first results from the&...

Presentation at The Forest Bridge Trust Hui, Kaipara Flats

Thank you The Forest Bridge Trust (https://www.theforestbridgetrust.org.nz/) for the opportunity to present at your "Building a Legacy Conservation Hui 2023" at Kaipara Flats last Friday. It was great opportunity to share the science and application with "right tree, right place", mapping most appropriate locations for non-radiata pine tree species, carbon sequestration and Forest Flows. We will be following up with your interest in the local Forest Flows research site with sharing res...

Presentation to APPITA and NZIF

Last week Forest Flows got the opportunity to present to the Joint APPITA & NZIF Annual Dinner in Rotorua, important stakeholder groups. The overview of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Forest Flows Endeavour programme was shared and our approach for sharing relevant results in 2024. Big thank you to the organising committee....

New Forest Flows Paper in CATENA!

New paper! This research, in the high impact CATENA journal, looks at the spatial resolution of digital elevation maps (DEM) and interpolation of topography and soil properties. This interpolation commonly used for all sort of analyses, like forestry, agriculture, geology, remote sensing and hydrology. However, they could be fundamentally flawed if the spatial pattern is distorted. Doctor Serajis Salekin led the team and found:* Mean absolute errors for primary and secondary topographi...

Knowledge sharing in Germany and the Netherlands

I wanted to give a shout out to the folks that hosted me at Forschungszentrum Jülich and Wageningen University & Research during the last few days of the Europe trip to present and discuss the Forest Flows research programme. At Forschungszentrum Jülich, I would like to thank Jan Vanderborght, Carsten Montzka, and the IBG-3 Agrosphere Research Group. It was a great discussion about integrated datasets and the potential collaboration with P-Band SAR. I rea...

Knowledge sharing in France

Last week was a busy one with attending and presenting the latest Forest Flows results at the European Space Agency - ESA PolinSAR and Biomass 2023 Conference (https://polinsar-biomass2023.esa.int/) as well as visiting and presenting at INRAE Bordeaux. Many thanks to raphael segura  and Lisa Wingate for hosting my visit to INRAe. Researchers were very impressed with the Forest Flows programme's integrated series of terrestrial and remote sensing measurements. T...

Visit To the European Space Agency ESRIN Campus

Thank you all at the European Space Agency - ESA Centre for Earth Observation (ESRIN) for hosting me last week. I really enjoy my visit! It was a great opportunity to discuss the Forest Flows programme's integrated terrestrial & remote sensing measurements in forest watersheds and its relevance for current and future ESA missions. I look forward to further discussions.Forest Flows is funded by the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour Fund....

NZ’s forests soak up far more extreme rainfall than we realise

The largest study of its kind in the world has revealed how our forests may soak up much more water in extreme rain than scientists first thought.The new findings – showing how one forest north of Auckland responded to two of the year’s biggest deluges – come from a five-year, $13m project led by Scion.The new data showed that, during the destructive Auckland Anniversary floods and ex-tropical Cyclone Gabrielle weeks later, Mahurangi Forest retained nearly 60 per cent of the 229mm of rain ...

Forest sponges: New research reveals how forests absorb water in extreme weather events

New research is showing how effective forests are at mitigating the effects of extreme rainfall during severe weather events.High resolution data collected from Mahurangi Forest near Auckland during the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle shows that nearly 60% of the rain that fell during those events was stored within the forest rather than flowing immediately across the ground and into waterways. The forest catchment was in effect acting as a sponge, holding on to water t...

Third airborne campaign is complete!

The third airborne campaign for the MBIE Endeavour Forest Flows programme is complete! Dr Delwyn Moller and team flew across 6 sites across Aotearoa New Zealand with SlimSAR to measure and map soil moisture at a fine resolution to a depth of 1m. This cutting edge technology provides for the first time direct measurements of soil properties in remote & difficult to reach areas. Two of the sites were directly in the path of the January 27th and Cyclone Gabrielle extreme weather events. Once pr...

Forest Flows 2023 Newsletter and Survey Results

The Forest Flows Endeavour programme has now entered its fourth-year, and thanks to the generous support of the landowners, iwi, and managers hosting our research sites, we have collected a lot of quality data.Below you'll find our latest newsletter which outlines our activities, a summary of our initial results and observations, and other major updates in 2022, as well as what our next aims and goals for 2023!The Forest Flows programme also looked at analysing the lifestyles and perspectives of...

BBC: Planting trees improves soil quality and water storage

Happy New Year!! The January 2nd BBC news article (click on link below) is about a surfer who worked the last 20 years restoring degraded pastural land in Panama into a productive agroforest system with crops and trees. Thanks to the advice from the local Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous community, it is "a thriving, forested eco-haven". It says "... also provides "green infrastructure" that can protect the environment, such as soil in intact forests which can absorb water to prevent flooding and relea...

AGU Chicago Conference and New Collaborators

Last week I had the opportunity to present at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Chicago. The conference provided the opportunity to meet in person the U.S. based Forest Flow collaborators from University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Southern California, San Diego State University, METER Group, and The University of Auckland Forest Flows world leading, integrated terrestrial and remote sensing dataset & technology for measuring fores...

Meeting with NASA and NZ Space Agency

Dean had a great meeting with representatives of the New Zealand Space Agency and NASA at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC. We explored potential collaborations between the Forest Flows programme and NASA missions. Forest Flows uniquely integrates a range of terrestrial and remotely sense data and uses leading-edge research to quantify key hydrological processes in New Zealand’s planted forests. This will provide more accurate information on tree water use, catchment water storage and ...

Presentations at NZ and International Conferences

Over the last month, the Forest Flows team have had the privilege to present at three conferences about Forest Flows. I've presented at the NZ Forest Growers Research Conference (https://fgr.nz/event/https-202...) in Nelson NZ, and at the Soil Science Society of America Tri-Society Conference (https://www.acsmeetings.org/) in Baltimore, USA. Scion's Jen Owens and NIWA's MS Srinivasan presented at the Lakes Water Quality Symposia (https://lakeswaterquality.co.n...) in Rotorua,...

Forest Flows has started its second aerial campaign collecting remote sensing data!

This spring campaign, led by The University of Auckland's Dr Delwyn Moller, provides key soil moisture and forest canopy data from various sites across NZ. Remote sensing data are collected when the forested catchments are wet (spring) and dry (late summer) to provide an unparalleled insight into the key hydrological processes that control planted forest water use, rainfall storage and release right across the catchment.The leading edge technology SlimSAR, uses L-Band and P-Band radar ...

Is the reputation of Eucalyptus plantations for using more water than Pinus plantations justified?

AbstractThe effect of Eucalyptus plantations on water balance is thought to be more severe than for commercial alternatives such as Pinus species. Although this perception is firmly entrenched, even in the scientific community, only four direct comparisons of the effect on the water balance of a Eucalyptus species and a commercial alternative have been published. One of these, from South Africa, showed that Eucalyptus grandis caused a larger and more rapid...

Wireless soil moisture sensor deployment at Riverhead Forest

Last week, Research Leader Dean Meason worked with The University of Auckland colleagues installing Massachusetts Institute of Technology / USC SoilSCAPE wireless soil moisture sensors (https://soilscape.usc.edu/) at Riverhead Forest for the Rongowai programme (https://lnkd.in/guFzG7rB). This programme, led by Dr. Delwyn Moller, is working with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration CYGNSS (Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System) mission ...

Presenting at the 2nd TAIAO Workshop hosted by the University of Auckland

Research Leader Dean Meason presented at the 2nd TAIAO Workshop hosted by the School of Computer Science - University of Auckland on the 1st of September. The workshop provided excellent connections between biophysical (environmental) scientists and big data scientists. Forest Flows collaboration with TAIAO researchers at The University of Waikato, led by Albert Bifet is an exemplar of this emerging collaboration. This provides both Ministry of Business, Innovation ...