The River Values Assessment System (RiVAS) is a tool that has been developed in New Zealand to help councils rank the relative significance of rivers in their region in relation to a specific use or value.
The method uses the best available data and expert panel knowledge to assess rivers against a standard set of attributes and indicators for each value. Threshold values allow this information to be translated into a numerical score from 1-3 for each indicator. These can then be added to obtain a total score for each river.