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Dataset Notices
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What this file contains
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This data file contains the monitoring history data (2004-2024) collected for State of the Environment purposes, from sites in the following South Island regions: Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, and Tasman; and the Chatham Islands.
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Monitoring data were collated from agency databases during July-September 2025.
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Additional notes
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Timestamps and time zones: Timestamps provided by agencies are based on NZDT, NZST, or UTC time zones. The time zones shown in the dataset have been programmatically derived. If the sampling time is important for your analyses, please check with the relevant agency to confirm the time zone(s) and timestamps.
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Lab methods: From time to time, agencies may change the laboratory contracted to analyse water samples, or laboratory methods themselves may change. While every effort is made to ensure these changes do not affect long-term trends, there may be some indicators where it is difficult to distinguish between a real environmental change and a change resulting from differences in laboratory methods.
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Quality codes: QCNumbers are quality codes assigned by the agency. These may be internal agency quality codes or based on the NEMS Quality Coding framework. QCNEMSEquivalent represents the translation from the internal agency code(s) to the equivalent NEMS QC. Related internal agency child codes for NEMS quality codes (e.g., 450, 210 etc.) are also included.
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File version
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Published 10 February 2025
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This file has been republished from earlier published version (30 October 2025) due to file size limitations, with the following changes: South Island file now split into two seperate files due to size constraints.
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Downloadable LAWA datafiles available at https://www.lawa.org.nz/download-data
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Ownership
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Monitoring data are from the organisation specified under the Agency attribute.
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Disclaimer
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LAWA provides this information in good faith to support open access to river water quality data collected by LAWA partners. While every reasonable effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data, LAWA and its partner organisations make no warranty, express or implied, regarding its accuracy, reliability, currency, or fitness for any particular purpose.
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To the fullest extent permitted by law, LAWA and its partners accept no liability for any loss, damage, cost, or expense (including indirect or consequential loss) arising from the use of, or reliance on, this information, or from any error, omission, or other deficiency in the data.
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Use of this dataset is at the user’s own risk and constitutes acceptance of this disclaimer. Users are encouraged to acknowledge LAWA as the source when using or sharing this data, in line with open data best practice.
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License
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Except where otherwise stated, this data is licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). You are free to copy, distribute, and adapt the data, provided appropriate credit is given.
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Attribution
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If you use or adapt this data, please acknowledge the source as: “Data sourced from LAWA (Land, Air, Water Aotearoa) and LAWA partner agencies, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).”
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For data from specific agencies, please specify these instead: “Data sourced from LAWA (Land, Air, Water Aotearoa) and [insert partner agency/ies], available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).”
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Include links to the LAWA website: https://www.lawa.org.nz/, and the licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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Short version attribution option: © LAWA and partner organisations. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source: www.lawa.org.nz
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Contact
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info@lawa.org.nz
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About LAWA

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Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) has been established by like-minded organisations with a view to helping local communities find the balance between using natural resources and maintaining their quality and availability. LAWA connects us with the environment by sharing environmental data and information. LAWA is a partnership between the Te Uru Kahika - Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa, Cawthron Institute, the Ministry for the Environment, the Department of Conservation, Stats NZ and has been supported by the Tindall Foundation and Massey University.
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More information about river quality can be found in the LAWA River Quality topic:
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https://www.lawa.org.nz/explore-data/river-quality
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