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• 2.1 Classification of Water Allocation Used in This Report
  • 2.1.1 Domestic; the "dom" Category
  • 2.1.2 Field
  • 2.1.3 Stock
  • 2.1.4 Industry; the "ind" Category
• 2.2 Summary of Published Water Allocation Information
• 2.3 Summary of New Data
• 2.4 Surface Water Catchments
• 2.5 Groundwater Aquifers

This section reviews existing water allocation for domestic, stock, field watering and industrial use. Existing allocation is aggregated in a set of water allocation categories that will be summarised. On the basis of the review of water allocation, new data is collected. This data will be described and summaries of allocation are presented by region, by surface water catchment and by groundwater aquifer.

2.1 Classification of Water Allocation Used in This Report

2.1.1 Domestic; the "dom" Category

The Lincoln Environmental (2000) report lists three categories of water use (dom, pws and mun) for human drinking water (Table 1). Their data set includes three additional categories, and one category where the type of use is not specified, of water use that are likely to be for domestic water. Therefore, this report assesses water allocation for domestic water in 7 Lincoln Environmental (2000) categories:

• dom - domestic drinking water
• pws - public water supply
• mun - municipal water supply
• cws - community water supply
• dom/stock - stock and domestic use
• rws - rural water supply
• nulltype - water use type not identified in the dataset

Together, these make up the domestic category used in this report (Appendix 2). Water in the domestic category is not all used for human drinking water. For example water allocated to municipal supplies is used by industry. This is discussed in sections 5, 6, and 7.

2.1.2 Field

Water is allocated for field watering, such as golf course and parks.

2.1.3 Stock

Water is allocated for the watering of stock water.

2.1.4 Industry; the "ind" Category

The Lincoln Environmental (2000) report lists eight categories of industrial water use (Table 1). Their data includes two category of water use that is not specified in Table 1 and unspecified industrial use. Therefore this report summarises water allocation for industrial use in 10 categories:

• ind1 to ind8 - as listed in Table 1
• petro - petroleum industry
• nulltype - industrial use type not identified in the dataset

Together, these make up the "ind" category used in this report. Industry also takes water from municipal suppliers. Sections 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0 consider use, and economics of water use, of municipal supplies by industry.

2.2 Summary of Published Water Allocation Information

A review of water allocation information (Lincoln Environmental, 2000) of New Zealand water consents (excluding Nelson City Council and West Coast Regional Council) was grouped according to three water sources (surface, storage and groundwater), three broad use categories (domestic, industry and irrigation) and 16 specific use categories (Table 1). Information on regional council consents was collected in 1999. A summary of regional allocations (Table 2) from this data shows approximately 266 million m³/week is allocated in 14 regions. Allocation from surface water makes the largest proportion of the total (Table 3).

Findings from this work include:

• 72% of all water allocated in New Zealand is allocated from surface water (either surface water or storage) and 28% is allocated from groundwater (Table 3 and Table 4).
• 77% of water allocated is for irrigation, 15% is for community, municipal and domestic uses, and 7% is for industrial uses and 77% of water allocated is for irrigation (Table 5).
• 19% of the current weekly allocation has been allocated since 1990. The majority of water in New Zealand was therefore initially allocated under legislation predating the RMA.
• There is approximately 500,000 hectares of irrigated land in New Zealand, 350,000 hectares of which is in Canterbury.
• 41% of the irrigated land area is irrigated from groundwater.

* does not add to 100% due to rounding

*does not add to 100% due to rounding

Lincoln Environmental (2000) data has significant information gaps in the Marlborough, Tasman, Nelson, Otago, Southland, West Coast and Taranaki regions. New data is collected in this project to fill these gaps (Appendix 3).

2.3 Summary of New Data

Water allocation information, giving regional allocations as in Table 6, is collected from nine regional councils and water supply authorities to fill in the gaps in the 1999 data.The new information (Appendix 3) collected as part of this project has reduced the data gaps evident in the Lincoln Environmental (2000) data. For example: the new data (Table 6) has an additional 6.6 million m³/week, approximately, of allocation. Incomplete Lincoln Environmental (2000) information occurs where any one of the following items is not contained in the consent information - CategoryID, UseID, SourceID or consent location. With the new information, incomplete information is a relatively small portion of water allocation for the domestic and industrial water categories for all regions (Table 7).

The West Coast Regional Council and Auckland (Water Care Services) data represents current water allocation information. All other data represents information on consents in 1999. It is beyond the scope of this project to bring all the regional consent information up to date and code this information by water use category.

Water allocation has increased in some areas since 1999. For example, Environment Southland has issued 454 consents for new takes, allocating around 1.7 million m³/week since the Lincoln Environmental (2000) study. A summary of the allocation since 1999 (Table 8) indicates the greater proportion of the allocation is for agricultural purposes.

2.4 Surface Water Catchments

Water allocation consent figures are aggregated by North Island and South Island (Figure 1) catchments using consent co-ordinates and a NIWAGIS map (Hall pers. comm.). This map has no catchments named (Appendix 4). Provision of names for all these catchments is beyond the scope of this report. Surface water allocation from "surface" or "storage" is aggregated. Water sourced from "surface" usually comes from rivers; water from "storage" usually comes from water supply dams associated with rivers.

Water is allocated for domestic supply in a total of 249 catchments. Appendix 5 lists the catchments with the 100-largest allocation sum by catchment number, name (where available) and regional council. The five surface water catchments with largest water allocations (Table 9) for domestic use are: Waikato, Clutha, Wairoa (Auckland), Hutt and Waipapa.

Water for field water is allocated in 45 catchments (Appendix 11) with the largest allocation in the Ashburton catchment.

Stock water is allocated in 45 catchments (Appendix 6). The catchments with the five-largest allocations are: Ashburton, Waimakariri, Rakaia, Rangitata and Ruamahanga.

Water is allocated in a total of 172 surface water catchments for industrial use. The catchment with the five-largest allocations (Table 10) are: Clutha, Grey, Waikato, Mikonui and Waitaki. The surface water catchments with the 100-largest allocations are listed in Appendix 7.

2.5 Groundwater Aquifers

Water allocation consent figures are aggregated by North Island (Figure 2) and South Island (Figure 3) groundwater aquifers for domestic water and industrial uses. The aquifer names used are primarily those from White (2001), Appendix 4. Some aggregation of allocation from the smaller aquifers is used, for example allocation from the 31 Wairarapa aquifers is considered together as "Wairarapa".

The five catchments with the largest domestic allocations (Table 11 and Appendix 8) are: Christchurch-West Melton, Heretaunga Plains, Hutt, Ashley Downs, and Auckland Volcanics.

Water is allocated in 94 aquifers (Appendix 9) for industrial use. The five aquifers with the largest allocation for industry are: Central Otago, Heretaunga Plains, Christchurch-West Melton, Upper Wairau Valley and Central Plains (Table 12).

The "Central Otago" and "Coromandel volcanic aquifer" entries consider allocation in all separate aquifers within a geographic region. Individual aquifer systems that have the five-largest largest allocation for industry are: Heretaunga Plains, Christchurch-West Melton, Upper Wairoa Valley, Central Plains, and Rakaia-Ashburton.