Predicting water levels in ephemeral wetlands under climate change scenarios

Ephemeral wetlands or kettle holes contain an often unique biodiversity of flora and fauna. In New Zealand, they can be an important breeding ground for iconic taonga species such as kakī/black stilt. Understanding the possible effects of climate change on the holes is a challenge as there is often limited information on the local hydrology, restricting the applicability of established hydrological models. We present a mathematical model that is parameterised using only recent rainfall data and water level. We assess the efficacy of our model to predict water levels under current climatic conditions and then explore the effects of a range of simple climate change scenarios. Our simple but effective modelling approach could be easily used in other situations where complex data and modelling expertise are unavailable.