Drinking water in Canterbury
Access to safe, clean drinking water is essential for healthy communities. Regional councils play an important role in monitoring water quality in the environment and regulating activities that can affect drinking water.
How we monitor and protect drinking water
As a regional council, our main statutory role is to monitor water bodies that can be used as drinking water sources, report on water quality issues, and enforce land and water use rules that minimise risks to water quality at source.
Gathering data and reporting on water quality
We monitor water quality by sampling more than 100 rivers, lakes and streams every month, and more than 300 wells each year.
Groundwater quality reporting: Our annual groundwater quality surveys show the state and trend for a range of contaminants that can be found in water drawn from our aquifers. In recent years, we've found that nitrate-nitrogen concentrations are likely increasing in more than half of the samples taken, while around a quarter show no trend, and less than a quarter show a likely decrease in nitrate-nitrogen concentrations.
Surface water quality reporting: The results of our monthly surface water quality tests are shared nationally with Land Air Water Aotearoa (LAWA) and can be viewed on the LAWA website
Nitrate mapping: We use the results of our annual groundwater quality surveys over time to map areas of Canterbury by expected nitrate concentration in shallow groundwater. This information can inform decisions about well depth and treatment options for those sourcing their own drinking water. Read about nitrate in waterways, download the current nitrate concentration report (PDF file, 4.29MB), or download the previous risk maps of nitrate in Canterbury groundwater reports.
Regulating land and water use practices
Protecting drinking water starts with managing activities on the land that can affect groundwater and surface water. Through the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan, we set rules for land use, water use and contaminant discharge to help minimise risks to water quality. Activities with a greater potential to affect water may require a resource consent, allowing us to assess risks and set conditions to protect the environment.
Resource consents, when granted, will come with conditions requiring documented actions to reduce contaminant losses to water – like limits on when and how fertiliser and effluent is collected, stored and spread; or requirements to adopt good irrigation practices. We undertake compliance monitoring and enforcement to ensure rules and consent conditions are being followed.
Farm Environment Plans (FEPs) – usually required as a consent condition – help farmers assess environmental risks on their properties and implement practical actions to reduce nutrient losses, protect waterways and improve land management over time. FEPs are audited independently and audit grades are submitted to the regional council.
Our land management advisors support landowners, industry groups and communities to adopt practices that reduce the risk of contaminant loss, especially in areas that could affect a drinking water source.
Drinking water protection zones
A community drinking water protection zone is a mapped area around a community drinking water supply, based on the modelling of pathogens like E. coli bacteria.
Through rules in the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan (CLWRP), activities within community drinking water supply protection zones are more tightly regulated.
In these zones some activities are prohibited, while others that may otherwise be permitted – like operating an onsite wastewater management system – require resource consent.
Prohibited activities
Within drinking water protection zones, the grazing of stock in river or lake beds, the use of land for community wastewater treatment and the discharge, and the discharge of municipal solid waste is strictly prohibited.
Activities requiring resource consent
The following activities may not be undertaken in a drinking water protection zone without resource consent:
Discharges that require resource consent
- animal effluent
- wastewater
- swimming pool/spa pool water
- pit toilet (long drop)
- composted sewage
- vertebrate toxic agent
- agrichemical
- solid animal waste/vegetative matter
- construction phase stormwater
- groundwater from dewatering
- drainage water from a drainage system into surface water, artificial watercourse, constructed wetland or into/onto land
- liquid waste or sludge waste from industrial process etc.
- stormwater to surface water or land where it could enter surface water
- water or contaminants to land where they could enter groundwater
- for the purposes of managed aquifer recharge
- water tracer
- passive discharge of contaminants that results in concentration of contaminants in groundwater.
Land uses that require resource consent
- effluent storage
- offal pit
- refuse pit
- silage pit
- storage and use of a hazardous substance in a portable container
- stockholding area
- a new cemetery or extension of an existing cemetery.
Check whether your property is in a drinking water protection zone
Use the map to find your property and check whether it is located close to or within a community drinking water protection zone.
Unsure whether the rules apply? Contact us for advice
Drinking water supply types
Town and community supplies
Most urban properties receive drinking water through a reticulated supply managed by their local council. Some smaller settlements share a community supply.
Taumata Arowai regulates town and community drinking-water suppliers and provides information about their responsibilities.
Our drinking water action plan
While our statutory responsibility for drinking water lies in monitoring and protecting water at source, in 2025 Council agreed to take further action to raise awareness of drinking water issues, particularly regarding nitrate concentrations in groundwater.
Our priority actions include targeted testing and monitoring of private wells in high-risk areas, together with awareness campaigns to encourage people to make informed decisions about the safety of their drinking water.
We’re also strengthening the implementation of regional planning rules, compliance activities and on-farm land management practices to reduce nitrate losses at source.
For more information about our role in nitrate and land use, visit our nitrate webpage