Owl Farm case study - Wetland performance

This page from Owl Farm, a demonstration dairy farm in the Waikato, covers the constructed and natural wetlands it uses to clean water before it reaches the Waikato River. The farm built a wetland in 2016 alongside its two existing natural wetlands, and NIWA monitored inflows and outflows between 2017 and 2020 to measure how well it works.

The monitoring found meaningful cuts in nitrate, total nitrogen, phosphorus and suspended solids passing through the wetland. The page explains how the plants and microbes inside a wetland filter these contaminants and sequester carbon along the way.

^{Photo: “Raupō in swamp, Kauri Point Centennial Park” by Bjankuloski06, licensed for reuse under CC BY 4.0}