The measurement of modern sedimentation in estuarine environments in New Zealand

Concern about coastal sedimentation in New Zealand is widespread. As a result, many regional councils now undertake monitoring programmes to understand the rate of change that is occurring within estuarine environments. A variety of techniques are used to understand estuarine infill from short-term (fixed rods, marker layers, laser surveying) to long-term studies (coring). Short-term studies provide detailed but temporally restricted data sets, while coring studies provide long-term generalised data. This paper reviews the common methods used within New Zealand and suggests that a combination of both methods is the ideal for understanding sediment infill.