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Northland region

Surface Water Zone: Wairoa

Water in Northland is a valuable resource used for agriculture, horticulture, water supply to towns and cities and industry. Northland has a dense network of relatively short and small streams with over 14,000 source to sea surface water catchments. 

Northland has a relatively high annual rainfall however this is not spread evenly throughout the year and prolonged dry periods are common during summer and autumn months. The rainfall pattern along with catchment geology and size influences stream flows and groundwater availability. Water allocation in most of Northland is relatively small proportional to mean annual low flows. However, a few catchments have high levels of allocation for a variety of consumptive uses. Abstraction of the full allocation in these catchments has the potential to cause environmental issues during prolonged dry periods because demand during this time is the highest. The Council is currently reviewing its Soil and Water Plan, with a draft plan due to be release in July 2016. The key focus of the review in terms of water quantity is establishing allocation limits, providing reasonable security of supply for water users and compliance with the National Policy Statement.

Surface Water in this Zone

Regional councils collect information about how much water is available and manage resource consents for those wishing to take water from rivers and streams. Use the buttons below to view information on: how much water is available, where it comes from and how its used.

Water Quantity

Rainfall Runoff to sea Surface Water available: Irrigation
 Industrial
 Stock
 Hydroelectrical
 Town supply
  • How much surface water is there in this zone?

    Rainfall and flow in this surface water zone

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    Rainfall and runoff

    Relative breakdown Source Volume
    Rainfall total:

    		rainfall Rainfall Total
    Runoff total:

    		runoff Runoff to sea

    The table above shows the average amount of rainfall the water management zone receives each year and how much of that flows out to sea. These are approximate figures only.

    The Council is in the process of determining water management zones and allocation limits. Draft zones and proposed allocation limits will be circulated for community consultation in July 2016. To enable meaningful reporting of water allocation and use, the surface water zones have been initial drafted based on the source to sea catchments and geographical grouping of the small coastal catchments. The Groundwater management zones are currently the based on the management boundaries of Northlands main aquifers.

  • Water consents: How much water is consented and used?

    Surface water available to consent

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    Consented water in this surface water zone

    Use the tables below to look at how much water is available compared with how much is actually consented within this water management zone. Click the plus to expand subzones where available

  • Water consents: How is consented water used?

    Consents by use in this surface water zone

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    Consented water

    Overall annual volume for
    Relative breakdown
    Activity Percentage of total consented Total volume Number of consents
    Total % m3

    The above table shows the proportion of water consented for irrigation, industrial, stock, town supply and other.

Monitored sites in this Zone

...retrieving sites.

No sites found.

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