New Zealand is a braided river hot-spot. Almost 64% of our braided rivers are in Canterbury, with a catchment of over 164,170ha. Indeed, the entire Canterbury Plains was formed by sediment and gravel carried from the Southern Alps by braided rivers as they flowed to the coast.

New Zealand’s braided rivers are networks of ever-changing channels weaving between islands of gravels. They are home to an extraordinary diversity of birds, fish, invertebrates and plants that have adapted to live in this challenging and dynamic environment.

DOC – Conservation strategy for New Zealand braided rivers: biodiversity values, issues and priority actions; DOC – Project River Recovery – upper Waitaki (includes links to extensive research projects relevant to other braided rivers) DOC – Interactive Estuaries website – great resource for where to see birds

Braided rivers are an iconic and highly valued feature of the Canterbury landscape. They are also globally rare landscapes known as a braidplains (explained below), and as such, New Zealand has a special responsibility to protect them and the plants and animals that evolved to live here and nowhere else on Earth.

Because braided rivers are globally rare, their braidplain ecologies are equally rare biodiversity hotspots. The life in them is highly specialised, the ecological relationships complicated by the fact that braided rivers stretch from the highest peaks in the mountains to the coast.

Fed by three large glacial lakes, Tekapo, Ohau as well as Lake Pukaki, the Waitaki River flows through Lake Waitaki, Lake Benmore and Lake Aviemore, the latter two contained by Benmore Dam and Aviemore Dam respectively.

Below are links to short (3 to 7 page) PDFs that include maps, types of river birds on each river in the South Island, and threats. These were each extracted from the 2016 edition of Forest & Bird’s Important Areas For New Zealand Sea Birds: Sites on Land: Rivers and Estuaries (177 pages).

Mar 19, 2022 · Globally, as well as here in Aotearoa New Zealand, there is a growing recognition that rivers of all types must be ‘given room to move’ to avoid catastrophic avulsions in the most vulnerable locations. Allowing braided rivers to reclaim at least some of their original braidplains to help act as shock-absorbers to mitigate the rapidly ...

One of the largest braided rivers in New Zealand with an average flow of 203 cumecs, the Rakaia River a catchment area (click to see interactive map) of approximately 2,900 km2. Its main tributaries are the Mathias, Wilberforce and Harper Rivers, which extend the catchment to the north-west and north respectively.

Jun 9, 2024 · Collect, store, and share data and information on braided rivers Interests in braided rivers are often competing and conflicting, the second point is where we find common ground: ecosystem health. I mention this because one common ground is the unanticipated threats from rising temperatures.