Roland Stenger
Dr.agr., Dipl.Ing.agr., TUM, Germany
Roland investigates how water and nutrients move from land into streams and rivers, advancing both hydrological and biogeochemical research to better understand the links between land use and water quality.
With over 25 years of experience working alongside regional councils and primary industry, Roland specialises in nitrogen transport and transformation, groundwater/surface water interactions, and pathways that connect land to freshwater.
He has led major MBIE programmes including the Transfer Pathways and Critical Pathways initiatives, and has contributed to national collaborations with ESR, NIWA, GNS, and the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. Roland has published more than 30 journal articles, reviews for leading international journals, and plays an active role in shaping global conversations on land use and water quality through conference leadership. His work provides science‑based evidence that informs policy, supports sustainable farming, and protects New Zealand’s waterways.
Focus areas
- Nitrogen and phosphorus transfers from land to water
- Denitrification processes in vadose zone and groundwater systems
- Using natural and built attenuation to support sustainable land use
Projects
Publications
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Nitrification inhibitor chlorate and nitrogen substrates differentially affect comammox Nitrospira in a grassland soil, Frontiers in Microbiology, May 2024
Shah Anish S, Hsu P-C,... Stenger R, et al
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1392090
Routine stream monitoring data enables the unravelling of hydrological pathways and transfers of agricultural contaminants through catchments, Science of the Total Environment
Stenger R, Park J, Clague J.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169370
Improving accuracy of quantifying nitrate removal performance and enhancing understanding of processes in woodchip bioreactors using high-frequency data, “Science of The Total Environment”
Rivas A, Barkle G, Sarris T, Park J, Kenny A, Maxwell B, Stenger R, Moorhead B, Schipper L, Clague J
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163289
High-frequency spatiotemporal data improves estimates of nitrate removal performance and understanding of processes in woodchip bioreactors, Adaptive Strategies for Future Farming
Rivas A, Barkle G, Park J, Moorhead B, Maxwell B, Stenger R, Schipper L, Clague J
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Combining surface water monitoring, age-dating, and parsimonious modelling to unravel water and contaminant pathways through catchments, Adaptive Strategies for Future Farming
Stenger R, Park J, Morgenstern U, Hadfield J, Rivas A, Clague J
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Woodchip bioreactors – design considerations, New Zealand Land Treatment Collective Annual Conference: Improving outcomes for land treatmen
Barkle, G., Rivas, A., Moorhead, B., Stenger, R., Schipper, L., & Clague, J.
The importance of the hydrological pathways in exporting nitrogen from grazed artificially drained land Journal of Hydrology, 597: 126218
Barkle, G., Stenger, R., Moorhead, B., Clague, J
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126218
A novel method for calculating nitrate removal rates in woodchip bioreactors using data from high-frequency monitoring. Weathering the Storm Conference Handbook, Oral abstracts.
Rivas, A., Barkle, G., Maxwell, B., Moorhead, B., Stenger, R., Park, J., Schipper, L., and Clague, J
Synoptic flow gaugings/stream sampling to unravel heterogeneity within catchments NZHS, NZ Rivers Group and NZFSS Joint Conference
Stenger. R, Rivas.A, Brakle.G, Clague.J, Moorhead.B, Park.J, Morgenstern.U
Synoptic gaugings/samplings to elucidate water and nutrient fluxes within catchments, NZ-China Water Research Centre workshop
Stenger, R, Rivas, A, Barkle, G, Owers, J, Clague, J, Moorhead, B, Park, J, Morgenstern, U.
Extension of Bayesian chemistry-assisted hydrograph separation to reveal water quality trends (BACH2), “Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment”
Woodward, S.J.R., Stenger, R.
Likely controls on dissolved reactive phosphorus concentrations in baseflow of an agricultural stream, “Journal of Soils and Sediments Journal of Soils and Sediments”
McDowell, R.W., Depree, C., Stenger, R
Achieving unbiased predictions of national-scale groundwater redox conditions via data oversampling and statistical learning. Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 705, 135877 14pp.
Wilson, S. R., Close, M. E., Abraham, P., Sarris, T. S. Banasiak, L., Stenger, R., Hadfield,
Nitrate removal and secondary effects of a woodchip bioreactor for the treatment of subsurface drainage with dynamic flows under pastoral agriculture, “Ecological Engineering”
Rivas, A., Barkle, G., Stenger, R., Moorhead, B. Clague, J
doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2020.105786
Determining spatial variability of nitrate removal in a woodchip bioreactor through high frequency monitoring at multiple locations, FLRC 2020
Aldrin Rivas, Greg Barkle, Bryan Maxwell, Brian Moorhead, Roland Stenger, Louis Schipper, François Birgand, Juliet Clague
Pilot-scale woodchip bioreactor for removing nitrate from artificial drainage in a Waikato dairy farm, A Workshop on Innovations for Attenuating Nutrient Loss from Farms
A. Rivas, G. Barkle, B. Moorhead, J. Clague, & R. Stenger
Development of a national-scale framework to characterise transfers of N, P and Escherichia coli from land to water, “NZ Journal of Agricultural Research”
Srinivasan, M. S., Muirhead, R. W., Singh, S, K., Monaghan, R. M., Stenger, R., Close, M. E., Manderson, A., Drewry, J. J., Smith, L. C., Selbie, D., Hodson, R
