For network operators
The Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai monitors and reports on the environmental performance of public drinking water and wastewater networks.
All drinking water suppliers have a duty to supply safe drinking water. Anyone who supplies drinking water should have effective ways to identify and manage risks to ensure drinking water is safe – including network operators.
Monitoring and reporting requirements
Monitoring and reporting provides transparency to the public and the sector about the performance of networks and their operators.
While our water networks are everywhere, they are often out of sight and under-appreciated. This means we may not notice them until something goes wrong. This lack of awareness can mean upgrades are postponed until failures occur, increasing costs and risks to public health and the environment.
Understanding water networks – through better information – is the first step to improving their performance, managing risks to the environment and public health, and being ready to respond to future challenges.
The Water Services Act 2021outbound has mandatory requirements for certain public network operators to monitor and report on the environmental performance of their drinking water, wastewater networks against the network environmental performance measures. These requirements only apply to:
- networks operated by local councils or council-controlled organisations
- government departments such as Department of Conservation, Ministry of Education, Corrections and the New Zealand Defence Force
- people who operate a network on their behalf.
Find out more about reporting requirements for the 2024/25 year.
Network environmental performance measures
The network environmental performance measures cover a range of topics, including resource consents, rates of water-take from source water and discharges from water treatment plants, water losses and water restrictions, condition of equipment, reliability and recovery of services including water security and emergency preparedness.
Currently, there are no mandatory requirements to report on the performance of stormwater networks.
Network environmental performance report
We publish an annual Network Environmental Performance Report which includes data provided by operators of publicly owned drinking water networks, as well as some information about public wastewater and urban stormwater networks.