PhD scholarship on building tools to measure the impact of lake health interventions

Image: Te Roto o Wairewa by Billie Ihaka.

4 March 2025

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship to study the health of shallow coastal lakes in Aotearoa, currently in a state of decline driven by environmental factors and human activity.

A number of interventions have been trialled to improve the health of shallow coastal lakes with mixed success. A lack of rigorous monitoring data has meant that assessing the impact of these intervention fails to be proactive, responsive and effective. A better understanding of lake health is required to identify appropriate natural solutions or human interventions to reverse these declines.

Te Roto o Wairewa, a shallow polymictic shoreline lake on the southern side of Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū, Banks Peninsula, has had a troubled history. The catchment was deforested and the lake closed off to the sea in the 1860s and since that time the water has remained turbid and prone to toxic algal blooms. The customary and highly productive tuna (eel) fishery was on the verge of collapse due to the highly degraded state of the lake. Efforts by mana whenua (Wairewa Rūnanga – local Ngāi Tahu Māori community) have been instrumental in improving lake water quality, but further improvements are desired to ensure the well-being of both tuna and whānau (families).

You will work alongside another PhD student exploring mathematical models of spatio-temporal early warning signals. This component of the project aims to establish a rapid on-site lake water surveillance system to detect the fluctuations in key algal indicators (diatoms and cyanobacteria). This will involve a combination of conventional microscopy, molecular approaches and machine learning. The generated data will be used to inform the spatio-temporal warning system. The main aim is to assess the efficacy of small (e.g. sediment traps or floating vegetation mats) and large scale (e.g. Te Kōawa Ika o Wairewa, a large-scale fish pass system being constructed within the period of study) lake water interventions.

Eligibility

This scholarship is open to anyone who can be in New Zealand and meets the requirements to enrol in a PhD at the relevant institution. We are happy to consider students from a diverse range of fields including ecology, biology, the geosciences or similar quantitative disciplines. Interested students should have a growing background in hydrological monitoring and associated numerical methods (working with R or Python), with at least some background in molecular techniques (e.g. genomic DNA).

The project will also involve significant interaction with groups invested in the health of the lake, including mana whenua and environmental agencies. To this effect, one of the outcomes of the broader project is the construction of a digital twin of the lake as a communication tool, so experience in gaming development (e.g. Unreal Engine) will be an advantage. The successful candidate will hold, or expect to complete soon, an honours or masters level qualification, with a significant research project.

Applicants from all countries and backgrounds are actively encouraged to apply. Members of underrepresented groups are very welcome, as are students with families. Our research group aims to achieve work-life balance within a productive scientific environment.

Location

You will be based at the University of Canterbury and will work with Dr Matiu Prebble and Associate Professor Graham Donovan. You will work alongside the team at the Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management.

You will also be part of Te Pūnaha Matatini, the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for Complex Systems. Te Pūnaha Matatini brings together ‘many faces’ – different disciplines, ways of thought, methods, and crucially, people – to define, and then solve, society’s thorny interconnected problems. Te Pūnaha Matatini has an active whānau group which supports early career researchers, committed to the Te Pūnaha Matatini values of manaakitanga and whakawhanaungatanga, offering supportive tuakana / teina learning environments.