OPINION:
Whether you want to know the water quality for swimming, or what the river flows mean for your farm management, or to just check the web cameras to see where the surf is up, this is all information Horizons Regional Council collects and has freely available on its website.
Our river monitoring network collects extensive information from 82 sites across the region, forming the basis of an early warning system for floods. Many of the monitoring sites send data every half hour to update models on river flow and this is essential for flood predictions and emergency management.
As an example, in the Whanganui River catchment, measurements of rainfall and river flow up the top of the catchment can provide predictions of the peak river flows downstream in Whanganui 12-14 hours before the peak occurring. This gives plenty of time for evacuation and planning for the installation of flood barriers and can ultimately save lives.
Similarly, farmers can use the flood models to assess when to move their stock to higher ground and prevent stock losses due to flooding. Stock losses were significant in the 2004 floods and with the expanded river monitoring network now in place across the region, many farmers rely heavily on the Horizons data for guidance on flood risk.