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Smarter Targeting of Erosion Control (STEC) News

  1. Final issue of STEC News

    The Smarter Targeting of Erosion Control programme officially ended on 30 September 2023. That month we marked the end of the programme with a workshop attended by the programme’s researchers and stakeholders. Nine months on, the last of several projects have wrapped up and their outputs completed.

  2. Cost-effectiveness of erosion mitigation to meet water clarity targets in the Manawatū-Whanganui Region of New Zealand

    Developing effective erosion control policies requires knowing the costs and benefits of implementing erosion mitigation measures. While there is a good understanding of the costs, information about the benefits of erosion mitigation at a landscape level is lacking.

  3. Environmental factors influencing the survival of poplar material planted for erosion control on hill-country farms in New Zealand

    New Zealand has naturally high erosion rates, and the space-planting of trees in hill-country landscapes is a widely used mitigation tool. The effectiveness of planting is, foremost, dependent on the survival and establishment of the trees.

  4. Trees for slip prevention: reflections on STEC from an international PhD student

    Slips (shallow, rainfall-induced landslides) are the cause of considerable direct and indirect losses to individuals, enterprises, and society. These slips and their prevention by trees was the topic of Feiko van Zadelhoff's PhD.

  5. Contributions from Salzburg

    Daniel Hölbling has been one of STEC’s international collaborators and was involved with the programme since its inception. Daniel is the Head of the Risk, Hazard & Climate Research Group in the Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS at the Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg. Several of Daniel’s studen...

  6. Visual clarity regime of the Manawatū River

    A particularly important effect of fine sediment, while still suspended in water, is attenuation of light. Two main aspects of water clarity are controlled by light attenuation: visual clarity (the sighting range through water of humans and aquatic animals) and penetration of sunlight into water for...

  7. Applications of shallow landslide susceptibility and connectivity models for land-use planning and erosion control

    STEC enabled the collection of new landslide data and the development of models to improve understanding of rainfall-induced shallow landslides. These data-driven models represent shallow landslide susceptibility and landslide-to-stream connectivity. Landslide susceptibility models provide spatial i...

  8. Sediment fingerprinting: a catchment-based technique to quantify erosion source contributions to downstream sediments

    Sediment source fingerprinting uses the properties of soils and sediments as tracers to estimate the contribution of erosion sources to downstream sediments. It is the only method that directly links catchment sources of erosion to sediment entering receiving environments. The technique first emerge...

  9. The influence of erosion sources on sediment-related water quality attributes

    Erosion of fine sediment and its delivery to streams pose significant issues for freshwater quality and receiving environments. Increased sediment loads reflect the loss of agriculturally productive soils and land instability, as well as sedimentation issues that can affect infrastructure and produ...

  10. The sediment contributions of New Zealand’s largest landslides

    In addition to improving our understanding of the erosion process, as incorporated in previous sediment budget models, the STEC programme is attempting to quantify the sediment contributions from other sediment sources. In partnership with Massey University, the STEC programme has supported the PhD ...