What is the water industry?
New Zealand's prosperity and the health and well being of everyone who lives and works here depends on a reliable supply of clean water.
We use water for many things - from everyday dishwashing and showers to heavy industrial uses in manufacturing plants and irrigation for our farms. Our water industry plays a vital part in every one of those activities – as part of it you're helping to ensure the long term survival of New Zealand and, in many ways, the whole planet.
The water industry has four main sectors:
Reticulation – the design, operation and maintenance of water distribution, storm water and waste water collection systems.
Essentially, the reticulation sector comprises all the public pipeworks in a town or city, including pumping systems, access chambers, their construction and their maintenance.
Water treatment – the monitoring, treatment and supply of drinking water from the source to the tap.
All towns and cities obtain their water from streams and rivers or underground aquifers. Almost all of this water needs to be purified and disinfected to make it safe to drink and to reduce its corrosive effect on pipes and taps.
Wastewater treatment - the collection and treatment of wastewater.
This ranges from industrial effluent to household waste and sewage. There are a huge range of physical, chemical and biological treatment options to make this waste safer for the environment and for people.
Irrigation - the application of water to support agricultural production.
Over 70% of our water usage in New Zealand is for irrigation, which makes it vital that this water is used efficiently and effectively, to prevent wasting the resource and the energy required to pump and distribute it.