Canterbury Water Quality

Water is of vital importance to the community for its life-supporting capacity and cultural, aesthetic, recreational and economic value.

Many of Canterbury's water resources - rivers, lakes and groundwater - are of high quality and are still largely in their natural state. However, in many places, pressures of land intensification and increasing water demand are placing stresses on the water systems.

The Resource Management Act requires Environment Canterbury to manage this resource.  To do this, issues concerning the quality and quantity of surface water and groundwater must be resolved. Amongst those issues are impacts from land practices, contaminant discharges, the overall health of our freshwater aquatic ecosystems and waterbodies' natural character.