Doctoral students from the University of Bremen in Germany are making the most of fine weather in the Bay of Plenty's by taking the opportunity to map the seabed around the port.

Gearing up for a day's research with the multibeam sonar profiler are Professor Chris Battershill, Arnulf Mueller, Serena Fraccascia, Dirk Immenga, Alexander Bartholomae and Ruggero Capperucci from the Intercoast programme.

The students are part of the Intercoast programme, set up last year between the University of Waikato and University of Bremen, to bring international PhD students to New Zealand to focus on marine research in the Bay of Plenty.

Similar research will be conducted around the North Sea in Germany, where Waikato doctoral students will travel later in the year.

The programme is the first of a number of international partnerships planned by the University of Waikato to enhance coastal research and training in the region.

Chair of Coastal Science Professor Chris Battershill, who began with the university earlier this year to lead the Intercoast programme, says research projects have been developed with input from Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Priority One and the Port of Tauranga.

The projects aim to provide long-term data modelling and impact analysis to aid decision making by regional and environmental planners.

Projects include looking at the impacts of harbour development on ecosystems, protection and utilisation of harbour and coastline and sediment studies. University of Waikato project supervisors are excited about the outcomes.

Dr Willem de Lange and Dr Karin Bryan, supervising the seabed mapping projects in the harbour, say new technology using acoustic imagery will enable students to identify the different marine habitats, and find out about the ongoing changes to the seabed which can cause changes to the whole circulation of the harbour.

Another supervisor, Dr Vicky Moon, will be involved in a project to measure the stability of the seabed using a submersible probe.

Professor Battershill says the programme is multidisciplinary, meaning law and social science PhD students will also be conducting research into the legal issues around fisheries management and coastal and marine energy resources, and the social changes taking place in coastal communities.

'Both the Bay of Plenty marine system and the North Sea in Germany have similar pressures from multiple users,” says Chris.

'Both areas are dealing with rapid population increase, commercial development and significant recreational usage, which means long-term and careful planning is critical to ensure decisions on future harbour development are sustainable.”

During March, earth science and biology students employed the help of a state-of-the-art multibeam sonar profiler to monitor and map parts of the sea bed in Tauranga harbour, every hour, in particular shipping channels and marine habitats.

High resolution 3D images provide detailed information on what the seabed looks like and what changes are taking place over time.

Students will return later in the year to re-map the area to get a longer-term sequence of changes over time.

How marine habitats could be impacted if large amounts of sediment are removed during future harbour construction, and how the tidal system and current changes impact the seabed and channels are some of the issues under investigation.

'Results and analysis from all the different research projects will provide invaluable information to marine and environmental planners in our region,” says Chris.

The university has undertaken research in the harbour since the mid 1970s under the guidance of the late Professor Terry Healy.

With the establishment of Intercoast, the project has now grown to include a multidisciplinary team to research the Bay of Plenty and North Sea environments from scientific, legal and social perspectives.

Students will spend up to one year in New Zealand, dividing their time between Tauranga for field work and the university's Hamilton campus for data analysis.