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Urban catchments

Water quality and quantity in streams, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and lakes depends mainly on land use in their catchments. Impacts tend to increase as land use intensifies. Urban catchments typically exhibit some of the most intensive land use in New Zealand, so it is not surprising that their impacts are among the greatest.

In New Zealand the effects of urban catchments are most obvious in Auckland. Much of the Auckland regional environment is urbanised and more intensely developed than other main centres.

The effects of urban catchments in Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin are concentrated on urban streams. These centres are not as large or intensely developed as Auckland and the surrounding catchments are dominated by other land uses. So urban land use has less effect on the receiving environment than in Auckland.

The Ministry is currently helping councils manage urban catchments through the following projects:

Auckland Regional Council’s “Big Clean Up” campaign
The Microbiological water quality guidelines.

For more information on urban issues refer to our urban publications or our urban issues pages.