Monitoring and reporting
Regular monitoring and testing of source and treated water is critical to ensuring your community always receives safe drinking water.
If you’re following Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules, reporting the outcomes of your monitoring to us is key to ensuring that monitoring and treatment systems, processes and equipment are working effectively.
Reporting is required on only a limited amount of the monitoring data you collect. Reporting requirements are determined by the type of supply you provide and the size of the population you serve.
You can view the monitoring and reporting requirements that apply to your supply using the links on the landing page for drinking water suppliers. If you’re unsure what type of supply you provide you can find out here.
There are two kinds of Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules to be aware of.
- Monitoring rules are based on monitoring water quality. These are used to determine if maximum acceptable values (MAVs) of microorganisms, chemicals and organic matter in the water, which are set out in the Drinking Water Standards, are being met.
- Assurance rules require reporting on activities designed to measure effects of processes and monitoring procedures.
How to monitor
To demonstrate compliance with the Drinking Water Standards and keep an eye on any other known risks with your drinking water supply, you need to monitor the quality of your drinking water by taking water samples and having them analysed. You need to monitor for the determinandsoutbound, and at the frequencies, indicated in the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules or Acceptable Solution you are using.
All registered drinking water suppliers must use an accredited laboratory to analyse source water, raw water and drinking water to meet their monitoring requirements.
We ‘ve appointed International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) as the accreditation body for laboratories under the Water Services Act 2021. You can search for an IANZ-accredited laboratory near you hereoutbound.
It’s important that you collect samples using the processes and following the guidelines provided by the accredited laboratory you’ve chosen. This will ensure sampling results are accurate.
If test results indicate that your drinking water does not comply, the accredited laboratory will notify us – and you – as soon as practicable.
If you’re a registered drinking water supplier you must then comply with your statutory duties – most importantly taking all practicable steps to advise consumers of the issue and what they should do to protect their health (for example, boiling their drinking water) and notifying us.
How to report
We’ve prepared comprehensive guidance to help you to meet your reporting requirements under the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules that apply to you. The guidance explains in detail what data needs to be reported, and how.
Below you’ll find a brief overview of the reporting options available to you, which are explained in much greater detail in the guidance.
Reporting using Excel
We’ve prepared two Excel templates that you can use to prepare your reports.
The Excel templates provide a structure for reporting in the absence of monitoring and assurance software. The completed templates can be uploaded through Hinekōrako.
You can also watch a video outboundof a webinar we held explaining how to report using these Excel templates. The video covers downloading the template, creating the report and uploading through Hinekōrako.
Reporting via API from Infrastructure Data or WaterOutlook
If you use monitoring and assurance software, you may be able to automatically report to us via a web-based Application Programming Interface (API).
The popular software programmes Infrastructure Data and WaterOutlook support reporting via an API. The webinar videos below show how to generate an API Key in Hinekōrako to report via API from Infrastructure Data or WaterOutlook.
You can watch videosoutbound of webinars we held explaining, step-by-step, how to report using Infrastructure Data or WaterOutlook.
If you like to report using different software, please contact info@taumataarowai.govt.nz.