The Full Surface Water Quality Report

This report summarises results from the West Coast Regional Council State of the Environment monitoring of surface waters.

This program assessed state and trends for surface water quality in areas where human impacts/pressures were considered to exist. Therefore conclusions made in this report refer in particular to these types of waters.

Click one of the below links to download the 2008 West Coast Surface Water Quality Report:

SWQ 2008 Main Document (PDF, 664KB)

SWQ 2008 Appendices (PDF, 3.55MB)

Or click below to download the 2005 report;

2005 West Coast Surface Water Quality Report (PDF, 3.22MB)

West Coast waterways are unique in that nearly all have a cool, extremely wet climate, and this climate type had the highest water quality out of a total of six climate types observed nationally.

Water clarity on the West Coast, with a mean of 2.8 m, was in the upper clarity range, and higher than most other regions in New Zealand.