title: Nitrogen leaching from effluent irrigated pasture

authors: Treweek, Glen

subjects: sewage

abstract: The surface waters of the Taupo region are of high quality and are sensitive to inputs of nitrogen. To reduce the amount of nitrogen discharged to surface water, the Taupo District Council (TDC) has employed a land treatment scheme (LTS), where treated municipal wastewater is irrigated onto ryegrass pasture. To limit the possibility of nitrogen pollution, regulations govern the amount of effluent that TDC may irrigate. This study reports the results from the first year of a five year trial where nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS was measured.
To measure nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS, 48 intact monolith lysimeters were installed beneath effluent irrigation from two centre pivot irrigators. Four treatments based on nitrogen loading rates were trialled, nominally no-N (0 kg N ha-¹yr-¹), low-N (350 kg N ha-¹yr-¹ or less), mid-N (between 350 and 450 kg N ha-¹yr-¹), and high-N (greater than 450 kg N ha-¹yr-¹). Leachate was collected at least monthly and analysed for total nitrogen (TN), nitrate/nitrite nitrogen (NO₃-N), ammoniacal nitrogen (NH₄-N), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN). The pasture was removed from the lysimeters to determine dry-matter production and pasture nitrogen concentration to calculate nitrogen uptake.
Effluent irrigation significantly increased pasture growth and nitrogen leaching compared to the un-irrigated treatments (P<0.001). The mean rate of pasture growth from the irrigated treatments was 15,800 ± 1,700 kg DM ha-¹yr-¹, but there were no significant difference between the rate of pasture growth between the irrigated treatments. The pasture of the high-N treatments had a significantly higher nitrogen concentration than the low-N treatments (P<0.001), consequently the high-N treatment removed 390 kg N ha-¹, compared to 310 kg N ha-¹ removed from the mid-N and low-N treatments. On average, the pasture removed 84 % of the nitrogen that was irrigated.
After 12 months, the no-N treatments leached 5 ± 3 kg TN ha-¹, the low-N treatment leached 15 ± 1 kg TN ha-¹, the mid-N treatment leached 17 ± 8 kg TN ha-¹, and the high-N treatment leached 26 ± 4 kg TN ha-¹. The high-N treatments leached significantly more TN than the low-N (P<0.005), but there was no significant difference in TN leached between the high-N and mid-N, or the mid-N and low-N treatments. The TN leached was poorly correlated with the rate of effluent irrigation. TN leached was positively correlated with the volume of water that drained through the soil (R2=0.7). The nitrogen in the leachate of the irrigated treatments comprised on average, 53 % NO₃-N, and 45 % DON, while the leachate of the un-irrigated treatments comprised, on average, 26 % NO₃-N and 72 % DON. NH₄-N accounted for approximately 2% of all nitrogen leached. Most of the NO₃-N leached throughout the year was leached after rain during summer and autumn. The mean concentration of NO₃-N leached from the irrigated treatments was 1.3 g N m-³. The concentration of NO₃-N in the leachate never exceeded Ministry of Health guidelines (11.3 g N m-³). The mean concentration of DON leached from the irrigated treatments was 1.2 g N m-³.
Removing nitrogen in the pasture is the solution to avoid excess nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS. There is potential to recover more nitrogen in the pasture by improving the pasture cover and frequency of harvest.

text: Nitrogen leaching from effluent irrigated pasture The surface waters of the Taupo region are of high quality and are sensitive to inputs of nitrogen. To reduce the amount of nitrogen discharged to surface water, the Taupo District Council (TDC) has employed a land treatment scheme (LTS), where treated municipal wastewater is irrigated onto ryegrass pasture. To limit the possibility of nitrogen pollution, regulations govern the amount of effluent that TDC may irrigate. This study reports the results from the first year of a five year trial where nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS was measured.
To measure nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS, 48 intact monolith lysimeters were installed beneath effluent irrigation from two centre pivot irrigators. Four treatments based on nitrogen loading rates were trialled, nominally no-N (0 kg N ha-¹yr-¹), low-N (350 kg N ha-¹yr-¹ or less), mid-N (between 350 and 450 kg N ha-¹yr-¹), and high-N (greater than 450 kg N ha-¹yr-¹). Leachate was collected at least monthly and analysed for total nitrogen (TN), nitrate/nitrite nitrogen (NO₃-N), ammoniacal nitrogen (NH₄-N), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN). The pasture was removed from the lysimeters to determine dry-matter production and pasture nitrogen concentration to calculate nitrogen uptake.
Effluent irrigation significantly increased pasture growth and nitrogen leaching compared to the un-irrigated treatments (P<0.001). The mean rate of pasture growth from the irrigated treatments was 15,800 ± 1,700 kg DM ha-¹yr-¹, but there were no significant difference between the rate of pasture growth between the irrigated treatments. The pasture of the high-N treatments had a significantly higher nitrogen concentration than the low-N treatments (P<0.001), consequently the high-N treatment removed 390 kg N ha-¹, compared to 310 kg N ha-¹ removed from the mid-N and low-N treatments. On average, the pasture removed 84 % of the nitrogen that was irrigated.
After 12 months, the no-N treatments leached 5 ± 3 kg TN ha-¹, the low-N treatment leached 15 ± 1 kg TN ha-¹, the mid-N treatment leached 17 ± 8 kg TN ha-¹, and the high-N treatment leached 26 ± 4 kg TN ha-¹. The high-N treatments leached significantly more TN than the low-N (P<0.005), but there was no significant difference in TN leached between the high-N and mid-N, or the mid-N and low-N treatments. The TN leached was poorly correlated with the rate of effluent irrigation. TN leached was positively correlated with the volume of water that drained through the soil (R2=0.7). The nitrogen in the leachate of the irrigated treatments comprised on average, 53 % NO₃-N, and 45 % DON, while the leachate of the un-irrigated treatments comprised, on average, 26 % NO₃-N and 72 % DON. NH₄-N accounted for approximately 2% of all nitrogen leached. Most of the NO₃-N leached throughout the year was leached after rain during summer and autumn. The mean concentration of NO₃-N leached from the irrigated treatments was 1.3 g N m-³. The concentration of NO₃-N in the leachate never exceeded Ministry of Health guidelines (11.3 g N m-³). The mean concentration of DON leached from the irrigated treatments was 1.2 g N m-³.
Removing nitrogen in the pasture is the solution to avoid excess nitrogen leaching from the Taupo LTS. There is potential to recover more nitrogen in the pasture by improving the pasture cover and frequency of harvest.

year: 2011

title: Making sense of diversity’s complexity:  Leadership’s agency for diversity management

authors: Chua, Shireen Wei Yuin

abstract: This research examines leadership’s role in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. The management of a diverse workforce in today's organisations is becoming increasingly complex. It needs to go beyond considering not only the surface-level dimensions of diversity, but also the hidden and dynamic deep-level diversity dimensions in organisations, that are considered complex systems. Surface-level diversity dimensions include gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility. Deep-level diversity dimensions are the hidden values, worldviews, personality, and experiences of individuals in organisations. In today's socio-cultural context, the heightened awareness and interest in matters relating to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is driving organisations to seek ways to address how to manage their diverse workforce that will unlock the benefits that diversity has promised. Diversity management approaches that only consider surface-level dimensions are no longer adequate. To unlock further the benefits of diversity consistently in organisations today, diversity management approaches must include deep-level diversity characteristics. This shifts diversity management approaches that have managed the various surface-level diversity characteristics to approaches of managing for diversity that require an organization-wide approach. Diversity management today requires the senior leadership team to play a strategic role. As organisations adopt a more holistic and systemic approach to their diversity management efforts, it requires the leadership to strategically manage their organization’s diversity management efforts. This goes beyond the diversity initiatives such as creating policies, initiatives, events and programs that celebrate diversity to  behaviours that foster a diverse and inclusive workplace. However, the strategic diversity leadership in their organisation's diversity management efforts has not been fully explored. This thesis seeks to explore two research questions. Firstly, it seeks to identify the factors that influence the three leadership dimensions of diversity management and the factors influencing the leadership’s strategic role in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. Secondly, it seeks to map the three leadership dimensions into an emergent model of leadership agency for diversity management. 
	Drawing from the literature review, three dimensions addresses leadership’s strategic inclusive leadership. Leadership accountability, leadership approach and leadership focus for diversity management describe different facets of the leadership’s strategic role. Central to addressing leadership’s strategic role is to further the understanding the factors that influence leadership in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. Leadership agency describes the capacity and authority of senior leadership team to influence, to make strategic decisions and take action to meet their organisation’s outcomes and goals. In the case of diversity management, leadership agency describes identifying and understanding the factors that influence leadership in their strategic inclusive leadership.  
The research questions of this study identified the factors influencing leadership agency in three dimensions of diversity across the different levels of the organisation. It also proposes an emergent model that maps an organisation's leadership agency for diversity management that provides a visual and practical model of leadership’s agency for diversity management. The study uses complexity theory as its theoretical base within an interpretive philosophical base and constructivist paradigm to examine leadership agency for diversity management. This research provides insights into leadership agency for diversity management in today's organisations through a multiple case study method. Using qualitative methodology, ten organisations participated in this research to determine leadership agency for diversity management. 
	This study makes original contributions by addressing the leadership’s strategic role in diversity management through the lens of complexity. It also contributes to the research into organisational diversity management theories by developing a practical emergent model that highlights the crucial role of leadership agency in achieving positive diversity management outcomes, especially addressing the complexity of diversity. The study uses a multilevel lens to explore how leadership approaches managing their diverse workforce. It proposes an emergent model of leadership agency for diversity management as a tool that can help organisations gauge their level of agency. This study underscores the importance of intercultural sensitivity development in future research on leadership’s agency for diversity management. Further theoretical development is necessary to enhance these findings' validity and reliability and identify leadership agency practices that support effective diversity management in organisations.

text: Making sense of diversity’s complexity:  Leadership’s agency for diversity management This research examines leadership’s role in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. The management of a diverse workforce in today's organisations is becoming increasingly complex. It needs to go beyond considering not only the surface-level dimensions of diversity, but also the hidden and dynamic deep-level diversity dimensions in organisations, that are considered complex systems. Surface-level diversity dimensions include gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility. Deep-level diversity dimensions are the hidden values, worldviews, personality, and experiences of individuals in organisations. In today's socio-cultural context, the heightened awareness and interest in matters relating to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is driving organisations to seek ways to address how to manage their diverse workforce that will unlock the benefits that diversity has promised. Diversity management approaches that only consider surface-level dimensions are no longer adequate. To unlock further the benefits of diversity consistently in organisations today, diversity management approaches must include deep-level diversity characteristics. This shifts diversity management approaches that have managed the various surface-level diversity characteristics to approaches of managing for diversity that require an organization-wide approach. Diversity management today requires the senior leadership team to play a strategic role. As organisations adopt a more holistic and systemic approach to their diversity management efforts, it requires the leadership to strategically manage their organization’s diversity management efforts. This goes beyond the diversity initiatives such as creating policies, initiatives, events and programs that celebrate diversity to  behaviours that foster a diverse and inclusive workplace. However, the strategic diversity leadership in their organisation's diversity management efforts has not been fully explored. This thesis seeks to explore two research questions. Firstly, it seeks to identify the factors that influence the three leadership dimensions of diversity management and the factors influencing the leadership’s strategic role in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. Secondly, it seeks to map the three leadership dimensions into an emergent model of leadership agency for diversity management. 
	Drawing from the literature review, three dimensions addresses leadership’s strategic inclusive leadership. Leadership accountability, leadership approach and leadership focus for diversity management describe different facets of the leadership’s strategic role. Central to addressing leadership’s strategic role is to further the understanding the factors that influence leadership in their organisation’s diversity management efforts. Leadership agency describes the capacity and authority of senior leadership team to influence, to make strategic decisions and take action to meet their organisation’s outcomes and goals. In the case of diversity management, leadership agency describes identifying and understanding the factors that influence leadership in their strategic inclusive leadership.  
The research questions of this study identified the factors influencing leadership agency in three dimensions of diversity across the different levels of the organisation. It also proposes an emergent model that maps an organisation's leadership agency for diversity management that provides a visual and practical model of leadership’s agency for diversity management. The study uses complexity theory as its theoretical base within an interpretive philosophical base and constructivist paradigm to examine leadership agency for diversity management. This research provides insights into leadership agency for diversity management in today's organisations through a multiple case study method. Using qualitative methodology, ten organisations participated in this research to determine leadership agency for diversity management. 
	This study makes original contributions by addressing the leadership’s strategic role in diversity management through the lens of complexity. It also contributes to the research into organisational diversity management theories by developing a practical emergent model that highlights the crucial role of leadership agency in achieving positive diversity management outcomes, especially addressing the complexity of diversity. The study uses a multilevel lens to explore how leadership approaches managing their diverse workforce. It proposes an emergent model of leadership agency for diversity management as a tool that can help organisations gauge their level of agency. This study underscores the importance of intercultural sensitivity development in future research on leadership’s agency for diversity management. Further theoretical development is necessary to enhance these findings' validity and reliability and identify leadership agency practices that support effective diversity management in organisations.

year: 2024

title: Uia ngā pou o te whare ask the posts of the whare:  (Re)storying the whare in curriculum

authors: Heaton, Sharyn

subjects: Whare

abstract: This research investigated the construction of whare tapawhā discourses in national curricula since 1999 and (re)presents other Māori perspectives of how a whare (house, building, school of learning, curriculum) can be known. I explored the constitutions and subjectivities of a whare and its relationship to hauora, well-being and its dimensions. The central questions raised in this thesis are how has a whare model of hauora, well-being been signified within dominant education texts, and how could a Māori (re)envisioning of a whare assist future Māori-medium hauora learning area developments? Further elaborations on how a whare can be known and its potential contribution to future hauora learning area developments take priority as a focus within this thesis.
For this study, I developed ngā pou whakaaro, a theoretical, conceptual, and methodological framework characterised by unfolding layers of awareness (and reflection) that I applied when thinking and reading through texts. Texts included primary and secondary literature such as curricula policy, hauora redevelopment wānanga (meetings, discussions) notes, hauora redevelopment video, hauora Ministry of Education milestone reports and interview transcripts. Within these texts, I searched for significations and signifiers of how the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being or a whare had been (re)presented. I searched for what was clearly evident and the assumptions made about a whare, and critiqued omissions of what had not yet been said. These gaps provided an opportunity to rewrite and reproduce other texts. 
I initially critiqued dominant representations of the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being, as evident in English-medium policy texts. I argue that the whare tapawhā model and its nuances in national curricula and compulsory schooling are not only driven by education imperatives, such as the valuing of the Māori language and knowledge in compulsory schooling, but are also assimilative in that the knowledge presented is simplistic and the understandings align more with Eurocentric ideals of well-being, albeit in the Māori language. I show that simplified significations of a whare in educational discourse shape the fictions that the texts seek to represent.
And then, in reading otherwise (Caputo, 1997, p. 62), I examined other texts about a whare and its nuances beyond what is currently known in curricula. I interviewed two Māori pouako (teachers), one Māori-medium curriculum developer, a health practitioner, a kairongoā (healer), and two tohunga whakairo (master carvers) to draw out the possibilities that exist for (re)presenting another Māori perspective of a whare. This space provided an opportunity to transgress from how the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being has been represented in curricula in Aotearoa. 
The main ideas that emerged from the interviews and the process of reflecting on the responses of the poukōrero (interview participants) provoked thinking about the possibilities of how in-depth understandings of a whare could support a (re)envisioning of the potential of a whare in future hauora learning area developments. In order to (re)turn to thinking about the place of mātauranga Māori (Māori ways of knowing), and how a whare can be known and experienced by Māori beyond what is currently (re)presented in curricula, the whare of Mautini Aroaro was examined. 
Representations of a whare may be partial and fragmented, but such representations need to be (re)traced back to their parts and elaborated upon to deepen understandings of the possible contribution that a Māori perspective could offer future Māori-medium hauora learning area re-developments. There is no one way to know a whare, nor does it need to be restricted to pre-determined representations identified in curricula. Through a restoration process, I suggest we engage with people’s experiences of a whare on different terms and (re)claim understandings of a whare as a repository and library for future generations.

text: Uia ngā pou o te whare ask the posts of the whare:  (Re)storying the whare in curriculum This research investigated the construction of whare tapawhā discourses in national curricula since 1999 and (re)presents other Māori perspectives of how a whare (house, building, school of learning, curriculum) can be known. I explored the constitutions and subjectivities of a whare and its relationship to hauora, well-being and its dimensions. The central questions raised in this thesis are how has a whare model of hauora, well-being been signified within dominant education texts, and how could a Māori (re)envisioning of a whare assist future Māori-medium hauora learning area developments? Further elaborations on how a whare can be known and its potential contribution to future hauora learning area developments take priority as a focus within this thesis.
For this study, I developed ngā pou whakaaro, a theoretical, conceptual, and methodological framework characterised by unfolding layers of awareness (and reflection) that I applied when thinking and reading through texts. Texts included primary and secondary literature such as curricula policy, hauora redevelopment wānanga (meetings, discussions) notes, hauora redevelopment video, hauora Ministry of Education milestone reports and interview transcripts. Within these texts, I searched for significations and signifiers of how the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being or a whare had been (re)presented. I searched for what was clearly evident and the assumptions made about a whare, and critiqued omissions of what had not yet been said. These gaps provided an opportunity to rewrite and reproduce other texts. 
I initially critiqued dominant representations of the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being, as evident in English-medium policy texts. I argue that the whare tapawhā model and its nuances in national curricula and compulsory schooling are not only driven by education imperatives, such as the valuing of the Māori language and knowledge in compulsory schooling, but are also assimilative in that the knowledge presented is simplistic and the understandings align more with Eurocentric ideals of well-being, albeit in the Māori language. I show that simplified significations of a whare in educational discourse shape the fictions that the texts seek to represent.
And then, in reading otherwise (Caputo, 1997, p. 62), I examined other texts about a whare and its nuances beyond what is currently known in curricula. I interviewed two Māori pouako (teachers), one Māori-medium curriculum developer, a health practitioner, a kairongoā (healer), and two tohunga whakairo (master carvers) to draw out the possibilities that exist for (re)presenting another Māori perspective of a whare. This space provided an opportunity to transgress from how the whare tapawhā model of hauora, well-being has been represented in curricula in Aotearoa. 
The main ideas that emerged from the interviews and the process of reflecting on the responses of the poukōrero (interview participants) provoked thinking about the possibilities of how in-depth understandings of a whare could support a (re)envisioning of the potential of a whare in future hauora learning area developments. In order to (re)turn to thinking about the place of mātauranga Māori (Māori ways of knowing), and how a whare can be known and experienced by Māori beyond what is currently (re)presented in curricula, the whare of Mautini Aroaro was examined. 
Representations of a whare may be partial and fragmented, but such representations need to be (re)traced back to their parts and elaborated upon to deepen understandings of the possible contribution that a Māori perspective could offer future Māori-medium hauora learning area re-developments. There is no one way to know a whare, nor does it need to be restricted to pre-determined representations identified in curricula. Through a restoration process, I suggest we engage with people’s experiences of a whare on different terms and (re)claim understandings of a whare as a repository and library for future generations.

year: 2022