Freshwater monitoring and LAWA
Land, Air, Water Aotearoa brings regional/unitary council and national science monitoring into one public system.
The current download area includes datasets for:
- river water quality and ecology
- lake water quality
- groundwater quality
- estuary health
- recreational water quality
- land cover summaries
LAWA also provides live/near-live water-quantity views for river flow, rainfall and groundwater levels, although coverage differs by region.
Monitoring sites are samples, not a wall-to-wall surface
LAWA's 2025 national river picture used monitored sites and explicitly notes that monitoring locations are not necessarily a balanced representation of every river. A point measurement should not be spatially interpolated across an entire catchment without a method that supports that inference.
Download dates matter
LAWA republishes national files as councils and analyses update. Record the file publication date and observation period separately. For example, several current national freshwater downloads cover monitoring through 2024 but were published during late 2025 or February/March 2026.
Licensing
LAWA says many datasets are CC BY 4.0, but datasets without explicit licence metadata should not automatically be assumed open-licensed. Check the terms for the exact download.
Last reviewed: 26 August 2026