Assessing Satellite Remote Sensing for Indigenous Waterway Monitoring, A Co-Created Case Study from the Ruapehu Region, New Zealand

For Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, waterways are not merely physical resources, they are living systems with their own mauri (life force). These waterways sustain livelihoods, support cultural practices, linking people to their ancestors and to place. Because of the importance of waterways, Māori have been monitoring them for centuries, using traditional practices while also incorporating new monitoring technologies over time. This project investigates the potential of satellite-based remote sensing to complement and strengthen indigenous led waterway monitoring in the Ruapehu region, New Zealand.

The Ruapehu district is within the tribal lands of the Iwi (tribe) Ngāti Rangi. The lakes, rivers and springs of this area connect the people to their ancestral mountain, Mount Ruapehu. Ngāti Rangi practices cultural stewardship by monitoring changes in these waterways. Their current monitoring relies primarily on in situ observations. Combining satellite based remote sensing data with Ngāti Rangi’s existing in situ monitoring systems offers an opportunity to enhance understanding of waterway condition and change at more frequent time intervals at multiple sites across the region.

This research adopts a co-creation approach where discussion with Ngāti Rangi has guided the selection of significant waterbodies and monitoring parameters. Multi-spectral imagery from Landsat 8-9 and the Sentinel-2 satellites is used to derive data that tracks changes in water colour and related indicators of waterway condition. These satellite-derived datasets are processed and anaylsed against Ngāti Rangi’s existing in situ observations to evaluate how satellite-derived datasets may support existing environmental monitoring strategies.

This case study contributes to emerging socio-hydrological practice by demonstrating how remote sensing technologies can support Indigenous-led waterway monitoring. It highlights both the opportunities and challenges of integrating remote sensing technologies within existing Māori environmental management systems and offers transferable insights for co-created monitoring in other Māori environmental contexts.