Ude Shankar

David Rowe, Ude Shankar and M. James used ArcInfo to build a three-dimensional model of Lake Taupō's shallow littoral zone from roughly 300 shoreline transects, aerial photography, direct observations, echosounding and differential GPS. They were interested in a practical management question: how would different permitted lake levels alter the clean-sand habitat used by smelt for spawning at depths between about half a metre and two and a half metres? Five lake levels could be tested against the model rather than treated as an abstract change in water elevation. The GIS connected a management setting at the lake surface to fish habitat around kilometres of shoreline.