NIWA Facilities

These include, where applicable and available, some of the following facilities:      

• Laboratories (wet, dry, gas, aquarium) ·    
• Deepwater RV Tangaroa, the only vessel of its kind in New Zealand
• A range of other ocean-going research vessels 
• Northland Aquaculture Centre
• Supercomputer

RV Tangaroa is New Zealand’s only ice-strengthened and dynamically positioned deep-water research vessel. It is equipped for ocean science, exploration and marine engineering, and provides a sophisticated environmental survey and ocean science platform throughout the South Pacific, Southern Ocean and Antarctica. Past students have been involved in voyages where their research is directly aligned and the opportunity is available.

Although designed primarily for coastal surveys, RV Kaharoa is capable of working throughout New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and further afield. In the last decade, the deployment of over 3000 ocean-profiling Argo floats has taken the vessel over 75,000 nautical miles, as far east as Chile and west as far as Mauritius.

A versatile inshore vessel, RV Ikatere is equipped with high-precision multibeam and sub-bottom profiler transducers for surveying and mapping the seabed. Highly manoeuvrable, this vessel is ideal for work in shallow water: e.g., deploying buoys, moorings and seabed sampling.

NIWA operates about 30 other Maritime New Zealand-certified vessels based at Bream Bay, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Turangi, Wellington, Nelson, Greymouth, Tekapo, Christchurch, and Dunedin.

NIWA is supporting the advancement of New Zealand's growing aquaculture sector through the development of high value products of verifiable quality and sustainability. The NIWA Northland Aquaculture centre spans 8.2 hectares, currently holding 200 research tanks on site, ranging between 200-70,000L. Including many flow-through tanks, a 30,000L, 180,000L and 350,000 L recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). The site is also equipped with multiple laboratories including a general, hatchery, algae and pathology laboratory. The team at The Northland Aquaculture Centre has expertise in systems design, environmental interactions, new species development, disease identification, prevention and treatment, handling and harvesting, nutrition, reproduction and physiology. NIWA’s dedicated team and facilities can conduct research and work with commercial clients to design and manage marine operations that optimise sustainable aquaculture production and meets high environmental and quality certification standards.

NIWA houses two supercomputers and is uniquely placed to support high speed computing that underpins national climate and weather forecasting.