The analysis, National River Water Quality Trends by Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA), was made using water quality info for nearly 1,500 sites over 10 years with water quality monitoring by New Zealand’s Regional and Unitary Councils, supplemented with NIWA data.
Trends analysis was led by Cawthron Institute freshwater group manager and ecologist, Dr Roger Young. He described the overall picture as encouraging and said, “Looking back from 2016 at a decade of data, for every monitored parameter, more sites showed evidence of improving water quality, than degrading.
“My hope is this could represent a turning point in New Zealand’s river health story.”
He adds, whilst the analysis is cause for optimism, water quality is just one indicator of river health and there is still more works to be done as there are still degrading sites.
The National River Water Quality Trends (2007 – 2016) released by LAWA follows a similar 10 year analysis released in 2015 by National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Compared with the 2015 report, a change in the trend of nitrogen is particularly noteworthy, with significant progress in the number of improving sites compared with the number that are deteriorating.
