Challenges around New Zealand's water resources, from providing clean and safe drinking water to solutions for wastewater and storm water, are major topics at the Water New Zealand conference that opened in Rotorua today.
The conference and trade expo has attracted about 1000 delegates and 300 trade-related delegates to Rotorua's Energy Events Centre. It runs until Friday.
Water New Zealand chief executive John Pfahlert said the changing population, along with climate change and an ageing infrastructure, will present some major and costly challenges to communities, local authorities and central government in the future.
"This is one of the forums where you can get the gamekeeper and the poacher in the same room, so you get the regulator and supplier talking about those issues," president Brent Manning said.
While it was not a forum to discuss who owns water in New Zealand, its allocation across different catchments was a major topic.