Research

This five-year NIWA-led research programme is developing a system to map flood hazard consistently across the whole country. It will reveal how our flood risk might change over the next 100 years because of changes to rainfall and sea level from climate change, as well as due to land-use changes. Find out more.

Community Air is a family of research studies, community projects and commercial services that empower local communities to engage with, assess and tackle local air quality issues.

NIWA’s research into forecasting weather systems aims to increase the resilience of New Zealand communities to weather-related hazards.

NIWA is leading a New Zealand partnership to map the South and West Pacific Ocean's seabed as part of a worldwide initiative to map the entire globe’s seafloor.

NIWA's long-running 'seven-station' series shows NZ's average annual temperature has increased by about 1 °C over the past 100 years.

Climate Present and Past is a core-funded project under NIWA's National Climate Centre. It aims to explore historical climate data and track past changes in climate through a range of approaches.

Black carbon, commonly known as soot, is made of microscopic particles generated by incomplete combustion. Download our latest maps of long-term average concentrations of black carbon from road traffic. Equivalent maps for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are coming soon.

NIWA participates in the Total Carbon Column Observing Network, a ground-based observing network dedicated to making precise and accurate measurements of greenhouse gas concentrations in different parts of the atmosphere.

This project aims to increase our knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and their restoration, and apply this to degraded streams, rivers, lakes and estuaries.

Developing a snowmelt forecast system to enable more accurate and confident forecasts of river flow and alpine hazards.

NIWA researchers are testing new methods for quantifying methane emissions from agriculture and waste.

Cyclone Gabrielle resulted in the transport of vast amounts of freshwater, sediment and debris to the marine environment of Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawkes Bay and Tairāwhiti/Gisborne regions.