This investigation analyses historical bed-level change at seven cross-sections along the lower Rakaia River between around SH1 Bridge and the coast using data from ground surveys undertaken in 1976 and 1988/89 and from airborne LiDAR flown in 2010. It is concluded that with a few exceptions, mean bed levels along this reach appear to have been stable - at least within the level of detection and allowing for natural variation in bed levels associated with normal braided riverbed dynamics. A slight degradation trend of a few mm/yr is consistent with a response to long term coastal retreat, at least for the river within about 18 km of the coast. It is likely that much of the 0.75 m of degradation apparent over the active braidplain of the South Branch 10 km upstream from the coast between 1988 and 2010 is an artefact of errors in re-locating the section line. The investigation included: 1) Securing the historical ECan survey records and entering them into a spreadsheet. 2) Extracting the 2010 bed-levels from the LiDAR along the ECan section lines 3) Post-processing the LiDAR topography to remove remnant bias from returns off riparian vegetation. 4) Using flow-gauging data to develop a relationship between wetted cross-section area and river flow rate for use in adjusting the LiDAR mean bed-levels to include wetted bed areas 5) Plotting the overlaid sections and calculating changes in mean bed-level reporting.