Dunedin primary and secondary school pupils shared their findings on the impact of dredging on Otago Harbour's sea life at a Sediment and Seashores Project meeting yesterday.
Pupils from Arthur Street, St Brigid's, Sawyers Bay and Abbotsford primary schools and Otago Boys' High School made short presentations during the meeting at the University of Otago Rowing Club on how sediment distribution could be seen to be changing animal and plant life.
Otago Boys' High School pupil Sean Woo (15) said he measured the effects of dredging, using a sediment trap, on chiton at sites including Wellers Rock and Macandrew Bay.
He and his study partner Nathan Hill (16) found areas with higher sediment build-up had fewer green chiton.
''Based on our project, we can say that dredging is impacting multiple points in our harbour,'' Sean said.
Otago marine sciences PhD candidate Matthew Desmond said the community monitoring initiative, which involved 11 schools, was already providing results.
So far the project suggested sites that had low sediment build-up tended to have higher species diversity, rocky shores were dominated by animals that did not like sediment and Wellers Rock, Yellow Head, Portobello, Back Beach and Dowling Bay were all sites found to have low sediment build-up, Mr Desmond said.
The children also heard from representatives from Port Otago and the University of Otago Science division, who discussed how the data they had gathered would be used in the future.
Continual sampling and investigation of new shore areas were methods which would be used to measure the ongoing effects of dredging, Mr Desmond said.
