Rivers

  • The Waikato River supplies metropolitan Auckland

  • The Hoteo River supplies Wellsford

Waikato River water

The Waikato River is the longest in New Zealand, running 425 kilometres from Mt Ruapehu to the Tasman Sea at Port Waikato.

Supplying water to Auckland

  • Since 2002, the Waikato River has been part of Auckland’s water supply network.
  • In the 12 months to November 2021, on average the river provided 152,777 million litres of water to the region each day.
  • The completion of the Waikato 50 treatment plant takes our peak production from the Waikato River to 225 million litres a day. A new pump station in Papakura has been built to enable the pipeline to deliver that amount to Auckland, via the Redoubt Rd storage reservoirs. Read more here.

How does our current take from the Waikato River compare to other sources?

Click here to find out the proportion of water supplied by the Waikato River, dams, and groundwater over the past seven days.

Waikato River consents


Infographic showing our Waikato River consents over time

More information

Treating Waikato River water
Our resource consent application to take more water from the Waikato River