how we work

Ecological expertise across freshwater, wetland, estuarine, and coastal systems applied to understand environmental condition, pressures, and response.

On the Ararira/LII Catchment Management Plan, our ecological field surveys (instream habitat assessment, macroinvertebrate sampling, fish surveys, and riparian vegetation mapping) established the biological evidence base. We then synthesised this into the values framework that structured the plan’s intervention priorities. For the Ō2NL Highway, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest transport infrastructure projects, our ecologists led freshwater ecological assessments across 48 waterways – from baseline investigations to consenting and stream biodiversity offset site identification. On Te Papa Ōtākaro/Avon River Precinct project, our ecological science was integrated directly into the urban river design, working alongside engineers and landscape architects.

Spatial frameworks that integrate diverse datasets, enabling complex information to be explored, analysed, and communicated at multiple scales.

The Focus Catchment Map Series (FCMS) integrates 150+ national and regional data sources (freshwater state, pressures, and contextual datasets) into a cohesive geospatial system. Initially developed to underpin the Wai Connection – Tatai Ki Te Wai programme, the FCMS is a system for catchment-scale understanding and prioritisation, guiding strategic investment. It's available for any organisation across Aotearoa New Zealand to commission their own resources. The same spatial integration approach underpins our digitisation of the New Zealand Wetland Delineation Protocols into field-deployable tools, and the masterplanning frameworks we've built for district council environmental management.

Structured data pipelines and automated processes that ensure consistency, efficiency, and reliability across complex projects. Where data is generated in volume, handled by multiple teams, or needs to meet quality standards at scale, automation removes the manual steps where errors accumulate and delivery slows down.

Within the 'Wai Connection' programme, our automated workflows took environmental data from multiple regions, often in different formats and to varying standards, and cleaned, validated, and brought it into a common schema, enabling the programme to scale its analytical outputs without compromising data integrity. Across our monitoring work, structured data pipelines connect field collection through to processed outputs. The same approach applies at any scale, from programme-wide data integration to automating the routine processing tasks that consume specialist time without requiring specialist judgment.

Translating complex scientific and technical information into outputs that can be understood, trusted, and acted on. This is a design and production capability as much as an analytical one. We interpret complex findings into clear narratives, then create the communication materials that carry that interpretation into the room where decisions are made.

On the Ararira/LII Catchment Management Plan, we interpreted the multidisciplinary science into a structured narrative, and also developed the publication (infographics, spatial visualisations, and layout) which delivered the interpreted technical science to landowners, council staff, committee members, and elected representatives. These science communication materials have been cited as a reference example within the Living Water (DOC–Fonterra) programme. Across our wider services, we produce technical guides, project summaries, and visual outputs which present complex information in a format people can really understand and work with.