Water quality monitoring map and data - all rivers and streams

The map below shows the locations and average results of Waikato Regional Council's water quality monitoring.

Waikato Regional Council measures water quality every month at 115 river and stream sites throughout the region. These include the Waikato, Waipā, Waihou and Piako rivers and the many streams that flow into them. We also monitor sites at Lake Taupō and at the streams that flow into it.

Water quality in rivers and streams is influenced by the surrounding land uses and land management practices. So, here in the Waikato, we find that water quality is generally excellent in our upland bush areas, but it deteriorates markedly in the urban and lowland farming areas.

The graphs below show the average results of Waikato Regional Council's monitoring during 2016-2020.

We measure a range of factors, such as water clarity, temperature, oxygen levels and levels of contaminants and chemicals. We use these to provide an overall picture as to whether a site is excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory for:

- swimming (people can fully immerse themselves in the water)
- ecology (supporting plants and animals that live in water).

Remember there are many other factors that affect safety for swimming, including access and flow rates. Our monitoring reports do not include or provide advice on these.

For more recent recreational water quality results, you should visit LAWA - Land, Air, Water Aotearoa.

How to use the map

Click on the expand icon in the bottom right to make it full screen.

Click on a specific site in the map to see if it's suitable for swimming, and the ecology of the water.

You can filter based on the areas in the top panel, so you can choose to view the river water quality monitoring data just for the area you are interested in.