Name of case study
Kopupaka Reserve
Location
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Year
2016
Scale
Suburb/neighbourhood scale
Area / size
22 hectares
NbS employed
Constructed wetlands
Type of NbS
Hybrid living / engineered interventions
Initiator
Auckland Council
Funder
Auckland Council
Budget
$NZ15 million
Design group
ISTHMUS group; Natural Habitats
- Drought
- Increased pests and spread of weeds
- reduced soil quality
- reduced water availability
- Waste management and hygiene
- water security and quality
- disaster risk reduction and resilience
- climate regulation
- fresh water
- habitat provision
- medicinal resources
- purification
- species maintenance
Summary of case study
Kopupaka reserve is a hybrid park that integrates the use of urban water-sensitive design through constructed wetlands with new public blue-green space. This is in response to urbanisation pressures in north-western Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. It takes a design-led approach to integrate community needs with engineering and ecology. It illustrates how urban growth can be balanced with ecological restoration.
The site had been used for industrial-scale strawberry production. This resulted in long-term runoff and nutrient overloading of the land which reduced the water quality of the existing stream (Auckland Council, 2016). Surrounding urban development also created pressures on the existing Tōtara and Waiteputa streams. To address this, it was decided to create a space that incorporated Māori understanding of the land and created a system of constructed wetlands improving the mauri (life force) of the water.
The design connects to the surrounding urban fabric. This includes street features like permeable paving, raingardens, and swales that feed urban water runoff to the constructed wetlands for purification (Auckland Council, 2016).
The project was aligned with Māori cultural values by interacting throughout the project with local iwi representatives. The reserve brings a more community-led approach to it. One goal of the project was to create a ‘sense of place’ by adding recreational and ecological health back to the land through planting and using a crib wall design which filtered water but also created isolated spaces to look over the park space (Marques et al. 2022).
The landscape has benefitted ecologically through the implementation of the constructed wetlands. Due to improvement of the water quality this has allowed two freshwater streams that are habitat to birdlife and marine animals to become healthier (Marques et al. 2022).
References
- Auckland Council. (2016) Kopupaka Reserve Wetland Park Case study. Available online: https://www.aucklanddesignmanual.co.nz/resources/case-studies/kopupakareserve. Date accessed 9 May, 2024.
- Marques, B., McIntosh, J., & Webber, H. (2022). Therapeutic landscapes: A natural weaving of culture, health and land. In Ergen, M., & Ergen, Y. (Eds.) Landscape Architecture Framed from an Environmental and Ecological Perspective. London: IntechOpen.
