Opuha Water Limited (OWL) conducts and manages several water quality and ecology monitoring programs in Lake Opuha and its tributaries, and the Opuha, Opihi, Te Ana Wai, Kakahu and Waihi Rivers. These monitoring programs provide information on the state of water quality in the Opuha scheme and wider catchment and are also developing a baseline dataset to permit trend analysis and a critical assessment of water quality spatially and temporally. This data helps OWL understand relationships between water quality, lake volume, river flows, cyanobacteria bloom development and climatic events.
This is OWL’s first Annual Water Quality Report. The report focuses on water quality data collected from 2002 to the end of 2023. Data is compared to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM 2020), and the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan – Plan Change 7 guidelines (CLWRP).
Download the full report here: Water Quality Report 2002-2023.